Sinjin and four of his closest buddies were at the Legion bar when the call came just after nine. He said he'd only be a minute, would return with good news and another round to sneak in before they could all head back to the house drunk and happy.

When he finally returned to the table, it was with glassy, red-rimmed eyes, not the cheery face of a man bringing good news. His pallor as white as soap. His empty hands hung slack at his hips.

While the Rolling Stones hooted their sympathy for the devil over the old bar speakers, the boys cheered Sinjin's return, clapping him on the back, calling him the "man of the hour," handing over a sloshing shot glass full of piss-colored booze.

Sinjin set the shot glass down soberly on the rickety card table covered in peanut shells and glass-sized circles of condensation, and locked eyes with Martin. As drunk as Martin was, the look got through to him. Something had happened. Something terrible.

His head swam from one too many celebratory tequila shots, stomach churning as he tried to formulate a tactful way of asking if there were complications. It wasn't like he knew the guy. But someone had to say something. The others seemed completely oblivious to their friend's pain.

"She's dead," Sinjin said, his voice barely rising above a whisper, smothered by Mick Jagger's howls.

"What?" Martin shouted back.

"She's dead! Ruby's dead!"

For one awful instant Martin felt relief.

His mother was dead. No more worries about her health, about her feelings toward him, about when she might decide she'd had enough of him and send him packing back to New York, into the clutches of a sadistic serial murderer.

Guilt rushed in on the heels of relief.

He was a bad son, a terrible son, wishing his mother dead to spare himself inconvenience. He'd always been a terrible son, ever since they sent her to the White Place and he wished, he'd prayed, that she would die soon so he'd never have to go back to that awful, depressing place again, where glazed-eyed patients in lime-green pajamas drooled and screamed and blew snot bubbles and stared at him accusingly, as if they might kill him just to switch places, to see what life was like beyond those plain white walls.

Then he wondered, Why would they call Sinjin and not me?

Drunkenly, it all clicked into place. Ruby was the baby. They planned to name her Ruby—for God knew what reason, probably after the boat and not his Ruby—and it was the little girl who died, not his mother.

How could he comfort this man he barely knew? And why would Sinjin look to him for consolation, of everyone here? Why was he invited to this celebration at all? He felt so out of place among them he'd spent the whole night getting hammered just to cover up the fact he had nothing to add to their childhood reminiscing.