I’m sitting on a bench outside the enclosed “course.” There’s not much of a crowd here at the Hole in Fun: five annoying teenage boys who spend more time hitting one another with their dinky little clubs than they do hitting the ball. I see one mom and her two daughters playing. The mom yells a few times, “Oh, Tiffany, just kick the ball through the windmill door, for Chrissake. It’s almost time for lunch.”

I take out my phone and check my texts and emails. Tracy Anne tells me that Gina Esposito had a baby girl. The last line of the message is: She’s going 2 name her Stephanie Tracy Anne Esposito.

I text back, Nice. Very nice. And I mean it.

Then there’s an update from Troy: charts and statistics, mother weights and baby weights and appointment times, test results and problem assessments. Then a question from Troy: “Katz’s office called. Wants to know when you’ll be back.” Another email from Troy: “Detective B called four x yesterday. Should I give him your number?”

I respond, only a bit confused, only a bit curious. “Yes, give Blumenthal phone number. Thought I’d already given it to him.”

I look up and see that my son and my brother are fueling up on Coca-Cola and Fritos at the refreshment stand. I know they’re going to want to play again and again. I decide to call my mother and tell her that everything is fine, so very fine. I call her. When she answers, I say, “They’re having a good time. They’re doing well. Best friends,” and then, to my complete surprise, I start to cry.

“What’s wrong, Lucy?” Her voice is understandably nervous.

“Nothing,” I say. “No, nothing really.” I pause. Then I say, “I just wish that…I just wish it could stay like this all the time. Cabot and Willie and you and Daddy. Cabot being calm and Willie being happy. Daddy being…well, alive. You being…you. Busy and bustling around. And…I don’t know. That’s sort of all I want.”

“That’s what all of us want, honey. We want so little. And it’s so hard to get even that.”

I hear the call-waiting hiccup. The caller ID reads L BLUMEN NYPD.

Then I say the irritating words I hate saying or hearing: “Mom, I’ve got to take this call.”

When I switch over, I say, “Hello, Detective. Didn’t you tell me to take a vacation, stop delivering babies, stop butting into your case?”

“It doesn’t sound like me, but I might have suggested something like that.”

“Then why are you calling me, Detective?”

Then he says the magic words. “Because I need you here.”

“When?”

Inevitably he answers, “Right this very minute.”

Chapter 44

Chapter 44

THERE’S QUITE A BIT of negotiating to do with my family in West Virginia before I can return to New York.