THE NEXT MORNING, Robin headed to the hospital after dropping Eric off at the train station. He was no doubt getting an earful from Shawn today for “leaving his post” (for someone who’d lied his way out of Vietnam, Shawn Labatoir was awfully fond of military phrasing) but, he told her, he didn’t care.

“Come home soon,” she had said. “I can’t wait to see you.”

She was thinking those same words as a cheery nurse led her from the waiting area to the private room in the new wing where her mother had been moved. I can’t wait to see you. “Mom is really looking great,” the nurse said. “She should be able to go home soon.”

Robin felt that spark of hope within her growing as she approached her mother’s room, guards stationed outside the opened door, the curtain drawn behind it. She could hear her mother speaking to someone—a man, a doctor probably, her voice stronger and clearer than it had been the previous day. “I think so,” Mom was saying. “But I don’t want to commit to anything if I’m not certain.”

Soon, she’d be coming home with Robin and Eric. She’d stay with them for as long as she needed, and they could figure out their lives, postshooting, post-Dad. They could settle into their grief together, help each other through. It wasn’t a situation she would have imagined inspiring hope within her in the past, but that’s what life does. It throws things at you. You adjust and scar over because that’s how you survive.

You bend, or you break. There are no other choices.

She started to push the curtain when one of the guards stopped her. “Just a minute, ma’am.” She looked at him. He was young, with good posture and rosy cheeks. He was in full uniform, though his hat was off, revealing a light blond military haircut that sparkled under the flat hospital lights, as though someone had sprinkled glitter over the top of his head. “Mrs. Bloom is being questioned.”

“She’s what?”

“And this was around what time that you returned?” said the man in her mother’s room—not a doctor. She recognized the Jersey accent. Nick Morasco.

“Probably eightish?” her mother said. “I was out for around half an hour. Not long.”

“And you can’t be positive,” said a different voice, louder and higher pitched, “whether or not this handsome guy was at your house, talking to your husband?” Baus.

“Oh hell no,” Robin said.

“Robbie, is that you out there?”

“Yes, Mom.”

Robin moved the curtain and stepped into the room.

“Ma’am,” the guards said in unison, but Morasco stopped them. “She can come in,” he said.

Robin’s mother was sitting up in bed in her hospital gown, the color back in her cheeks. “Hi, honey.”