Since then, once a year, she issued a strictly limited edition of one hundred sculptures of one of her bonsai. She signed and numbered them and made the gallery charge an astronomical amount for each. She didn't need the money, but the high price tag and the limited supply made them all the more sought after. She had had numerous offers—extremely generous offers—for the original living trees from which the copies had been cut. She turned them down and refused to hear any counteroffers. No one other than Sylvia herself would ever own or care for her trees. Bonsai culture was a delicate, time-consuming task that took skill, practice, and devotion— not for amateurs.

Take the ishi-zuki, for instance. How could she allow some clown with a fat wallet, who thought all they needed was a little watering like a house plant, entrust them to his maid for care? Especially this one. The leafy area had been pruned into the shape of a neat little Cape Cod house, which was supported by a gently curved trunk whose roots were clasped tightly around a supporting rock. This tree spoke to her. Selling it would be unthinkable.

But she would gladly sell replicas, and people were waiting in line to buy them.

Which made her Someone to Know.

Sylvia knew she really didn't fit in with the celebrities who bought her sculptures and wanted to meet her and invite her to their parties. Sometimes it seemed to her that she didn't fit anywhere. But she accepted the invitations and maintained tenuous contact with the rich and famous, staying on the fringes, riding along, waiting for something interesting to happen. She used them for some of her nights. The nights could be a hellish burden at times. Jeffy and her trees and her investments filled the days, but the nights went on forever.

Last night had been an exception, however. It had proved far too short. Alan's presence had injected a special kind of life into the old house, warming it, brightening it. She could so easily get used to having him come home to her every night, kissing him hello, touching him—

She shook off the thought with a touch of irritation. No sense getting lost in that little fantasy. She had had that kind of life once, in a tiny garden apartment downtown.

She caught herself. She hadn't thought of the old apartment in years. Those memories were supposed to be locked safely away for good. That kind of life was gone for good, as were the Sylvia Nash and the man who had lived it together. The man was dead, and the Sylvia Nash of today no longer wanted or needed that life. She had built a new one from scratch. The old Sylvia was gone. And no one was going to bring her back.

Besides, Alan Bulmer was taken.

Still, it was a nice, respectable little fantasy, as long as that was all it remained.

After all, she thought with a wry smile, she had her reputation to consider.

She went back into the kitchen. Jeffy was still at the table, scraping the bottom of his bowl. She pulled it away and gave him his glass of milk.

"Okay, guy," she said, lightly running her fingers through his curly hair as he drank his milk in huge gulps. "We're going to clean you up and get you over to Dr. Buhner's before his office gets too crowded."

Jeffy didn't look at her. He had finished his milk and was busy staring into the bottom of the glass.

"Someday you're going to talk to me, Jeffy. You may not know it yet, but someday you're going to call me 'Mommy.' She kissed him on the forehead. How could she feel so intensely about someone who did not acknowledge her existence? "You are, damn it. You are!"

The modern, brightly lit waiting room was crowded with people of all ages, shapes, and sizes. The receptionist said that Dr. Bulmer had penciled in Jeffy's name and they would get to him in a minute. Two of the children had started screaming at the sight of Ba, so he left to wait in the car. Sylvia seated herself next to a polyester princess who eyed her Albert Nipon suit with barely concealed hostility.

Wouldn't fit you anyway, honey, she thought as she snuggled Jeffy in against her on a seat and waited.

A little girl, no more than four or five years old, with blue eyes and straight blond hair, came up and stood before Jeffy. After looking at him for a while she said, "I'm here with my mommy." She pointed to a woman across the room engrossed in a magazine. "That's my mommy over there."

Jeffy stared over her left shoulder and said nothing.

"My mommy's sick," she said in a louder voice. "Is your mommy sick?"

She might have been a piece of furniture for all the notice Jeffy took of her, but her voice was attracting the attention of the other waiting patients. The room grew perceptively quieter as they waited for the reply that would never come from Jeffy.

Tense and watchful, Sylvia bit her lip, trying to think of a way to defuse the situation. The little girl, however, did it for her.

"My mommy's got diarrhea, that's why she's here to see the doctor. All the time she keeps going to the bathroom."

As the waiting room rippled with restrained laughter, the woman with the magazine, her face now red with embarrassment, came over and led the little girl back to her seat.

Jeffy neither laughed nor smiled.

It wasn't long before they were called back to an examining room. She sat Jeffy on the paper-covered table and undressed him down to his training pants. He was still dry. Jeffy would use the bathroom if it was convenient, but if he was absorbed in something or away from home, he simply went in his pants. The nurse took a rectal temperature, said it was normal, then left them to wait. Alan entered about ten minutes later. He smiled at her, then turned to Jeffy.

"So you made it through the night, Jeff? No more bellyaches? How about lying back and letting me check the old tummy."

As he went through the examination, he kept up the chatter, as if Jeffy were just like any other eight-year-old. That was what had immediately attracted Sylvia to Alan as a physician—the way he treated Jeffy. Most doctors in her experience had examined him thoroughly and gently, but never spoke to him. They would talk to her but never to Jeffy. True, he wasn't listening and wouldn't respond, so why talk to him? She had never noticed it until that day she brought him to see Alan after he had fallen and his elbow had swollen up. Sylvia had been sure it was broken and had been about to rush him over to her Uncle Lou's office when she remembered that he was out of town that day. But his former associate, Dr. Bulmer, had been available. They had been introduced briefly in a hallway of her uncle's office when the two had been partners and she didn't know anything about him except that her uncle had said at the time that he was "pretty sharp." Anyplace but an emergency room, she had thought, and had consented to letting the new guy examine Jeffy.

That one brief visit had been a revelation. Jeffy's autism didn't faze Alan at all. He had treated Jeffy like a real human being, not like some sort of deaf, dumb, blind block of wood. There was respect in his attitude, almost reverence—this was another human being he was treating. It wasn't an act, either.

She had sensed that it came naturally to this man. And for just a second, as Alan had lifted him off the table, Jeffy had hugged him.

That had been it. From then on there had been no other doctor for Jeffy. Only Alan Bulmer would do.

Her Uncle Lou had been a little miffed when he learned about Alan examining Jeffy, but that had been nothing compared to the explosion that had occurred when she transferred Jeffy's records to Alan's new office.

And now she watched Alan as he pushed and tapped on Jeffy's abdomen again. He kept getting better-looking as he got older. The little touches of gray flecking the dark brown hair of his temples didn't make him look older, just more distinguished. He was built the way she liked a man, tall and lean, with those long legs and piercing dark brown eyes…