Breakfast on summer mornings never failed to remind Thomas why he loved his house, despite all the calamitous and claustrophobic memories of the divorce. It was shallow, he knew, but it seemed to have the character of a movie still. There was something poetic about the pose of things: the sunlight glowing off the panes, the kids awash in the waking glare, the gleam striping the fixtures, rolling across the clatter of knife, spoon, and fork. The shadow cast by the kettle's steam.

Now if only Nora hadn't taken all the fucking plants.

'Ah,' Frankie said to Sam in the best Scottish accent a four-year-old could manage, 'yew're keeper, lass!'

Sam shot Thomas a what-planet-is-he-from? look. Her smile caught the sun.

Thomas refilled her tea cup, then asked who wanted the last piece of bacon before—as he always did—popping it into his mouth. The kids laughed, as they always did. 'Aww, you wanted it?' he cried to Frankie in mock astonishment. 'You should have said something!'

Sam's palmtop twittered from her purse. She swore softly after looking at the ID, then retreated into the living room. Thomas found himself admiring her buns yet again, this time through her skirt.

'Did you show her your thingy too, Dad?' Ripley asked.

Thomas nearly coughed up bacon bits. 'Did I show her what?'

'Do you flush when you pee, Dad?' Frankie asked. Obviously this was Relentless Embarrassing Question Hour.

'Okay, guys, this poopy-talk has got to stop. It's not cute anymore. Keep this up and you're going to get me arrested. No. More. Poopy-talk. Okay?'

'Was that why the FBIs was here?' Frankie asked.

He'd been dreading this one.

'No,' he started carefully, 'that's not—'

'They were here,' Ripley interrupted, 'because Uncle Cass is a psycho.'

'Not funny, Ripley.'

'What's a psycho, Dad?' Frankie asked.

He glared at Ripley, warning her not to interrupt. 'A psycho is someone whose thoughts are broken. Someone who's sick. But I don't want to hear you using that word. It's not a nice word, Frankie. That goes for you too, Ripley.'

'But aren't you a psycho?' Frankie asked.

Thomas smiled. 'I'm a psychologist, son. I help fix people whose thoughts are broken.'

That was the idea, anyway. Aside from mentoring the odd student here and there, all he did was pontificate in front of classrooms and argue obscure positions in journals and in conferences. But technically he was still a healer. He was just at several removes from those who needed to be healed.

Until recently, that is.

'How do you know when they're broken? Do they bleed?'

'No,' he replied. Other people do.

'They act crazy,' Ripley said. 'They don't do what they're supposed to do. Like flush the toilet.'

'When it's yellow,' Frankie hollered with small-boy savagery, 'let it mellow!'