After letting myself into the house, I walk through to the den and find Mia lying on the sofa with a hardcover book propped on her stomach. I say hello, and she answers, but ten seconds later she’s back to studying the pages like Champollion over the Rosetta Stone.

“What you reading?” I ask, walking closer.

She holds the book higher for me to see. The jacket is from an old first edition I bought in England, The Eagle Has Landed, by Jack Higgins.

“That’s not your kind of thing. You couldn’t find something more your style in my office? Or have you read everything in there already?”

“I actually like this. Was Doris okay?”

“She’s worried about Quentin’s health. I think they’re both depressed.”

“I’m not surprised,” Mia says without looking up.

Sensing that she wants me to leave her alone, I start to walk into the kitchen, but then I go back to the sofa. “Is Annie asleep?”

“No, she’s up in your mom’s room. Peggy and I talked while Annie was taking a bath, but I wanted Annie to get some alone time with her.”

Before I can thank Mia, my cell phone rings.

“It’s Jenny, calling me from upstairs,” I say, looking at the LCD. “Probably wants to talk about the trial.”

Mia clucks her tongue critically. “High maintenance, man.”

I could go upstairs to talk to Jenny, but I’d rather not. She will have a dozen points to make, most of which are irrelevant to the core issues of the trial, and mostly she’ll want reassurance. I call her back and do my best to sound attentive, but plead that I need to do some legal research downstairs. While my sister chatters on, I walk a slow circuit around the main floor, keeping a good distance from Mia. But as I extricate myself from the conversation, I pass back into the den and steal a glance at the running heads on the two exposed pages of the book in her hands. The left-hand one reads: Serenity Butler. The right-hand one: The Paper Bag Test.

“Oh, boy,” I say, trying not to laugh as I hang up. “Why didn’t you want me to know you’re reading that?”

Mia slams the book shut and drops it on the floor, her cheeks pink. “Hell, I don’t know. I guess because I was catty this morning. I’m embarrassed now. It’s a damn good book.”

She sits up and gives me an abashed smile, but it fades quickly.

“Mia, do you regret taking this semester off? Maybe it isn’t what you thought it would be.”