That's only a few miles from here! It was, in fact, right off of Route 50, and that meant that Jack passed it twice a day on his way to and from work.

How convenient!

So, who the hell was Carol Zimmer?

Medical bills! Obstetrics!

Dr Marsha Rosen! I know her! Had Cathy not been on the faculty at Hopkins, she would have used Marsha Rosen for her own pregnancies; Rosen was a Yale graduate with a very fine reputation.

A baby! Jacqueline Zimmer! Jacqueline? Cathy thought, her face flushed scarlet. Then the tears began streaming down her cheeks.

You bastard! You can't give me a baby, but you gave one to her, didn't you?

She checked the date, then searched her memory, Jack hadn't been home that day until very late. She remembered, because she'd had to cancel out on a dinner party over at

He was there! He was there for the delivery, wasn't he! What more proof do I need? The triumph of the discovery changed at once into black despair.

The world could end so easily, Cathy thought, just a slip of paper could do it, and that was it. It was over.

Is it over?

How could it not be? Even if he still wanted - did she want him?

What about the kids? Cathy asked herself. She closed the file and replaced it without rising. "You're a doctor," she said to herself. "You're supposed to think before you act."

The kids needed a father. But what sort of father was he? Gone thirteen or fourteen hours a day, sometimes seven days a week. He managed to take his son to one - just one! - baseball game, despite constant pleas. He was lucky to make half of Little Jack's T-Ball games. He missed every school affair, the Christmas plays, all the other things. Cathy had been half surprised that he'd been home Christmas morning. The night before, assembling the toys, he'd gotten drunk again, and she hadn't even bothered trying to attract him. What was the point? His present to her well, it was nice enough, but the sort of thing a man could get in a few minutes of shopping, no big deal - Shopping.

Cathy rose and checked through the mail on Jack's desk. His credit card bills were sitting in the pile. She opened one and found a bunch of entries from Hamley's in London. Six hundred dollars? But he'd only gotten one thing for Little Jack, and two small items for Sally. Six hundred dollars!

Christmas shopping for two families, Jack!

"Just how much more evidence do you need, Cathy girl?" she asked herself aloud again. "Oh God oh God oh God-"

She didn't move for a very long time, nor did she see or hear anything outside of her own misery. Only the mother in her kept subconscious track of the sound of the kids in the playroom.

Jack got home just before seven that evening, actually rather pleased with himself to be an hour early, and further pleased that he had the Mexico operation set in concrete now. All he had to do was take it to the White House, and then after he got it approved - Fowler would go for this; risks and all, distaste for covert operations and all, this was too juicy for the politician in him to turn down - and after Clark and Chavez brought it off, his stock would go up. And things would change. Things would get better. He would get things straightened out. For starters, he'd plan a vacation. It was time for one. A week off, maybe two, and if some CIA puke showed up with daily briefing documents, Ryan would kill the son-of-a-bitch. He wanted freedom from the job, and he'd get it. Two good weeks. Take the kids out of school and go see Mickey, just as Clark had suggested. He'd make the reservations tomorrow.