"I AGREE WITH TOM! IT'S DONE AND DONE. GET OVER IT, JUNIOR! ALWAYS, WITH THE TO. THING. LET IT GO!"

Paul Greco. The third son and the baby of the family, he couldn't speak softer than three billion decibels, in case he didn't get enough attention. He'd excelled at high school football but didn't get enough playing time at Penn State, so was forced to settle for golf and a three handicap. He'd been a rabbit on the pro tour until he quit to become property acquisition jock at Greco.

"Funny how you don't hear from Rosenhaus anymore. I gotta admit, I miss the guy. Remember TO. at the podium with him and some reporter asked that great question? How funny was that? I'll never forget it. What'd he say?"

Hank Ballisteri. Nat's boyfriend of three years, a commercial realtor who did business with Greco Construction and who had impressed Big John enough to get invited to every family function, where he and Nat had met, as part of her father's master plan. Tonight was Hank's thirty-third birthday. She'd wanted to take him out alone, but he'd closed a big deal with her father and a client today, so it made sense to celebrate his birthday en famille. It reminded Nat of a poem about birthdays. She scratched Jelly, and while he purred, she tried to remember the poem. She couldn't hear herself think for the shouting. It sounded like they'd started celebrating early.

"'WHAT HAVE YOU DONE FOR YOUR CLIENT BESIDES GET HIM FIRED?'" the men yelled in unison, then burst into loud laughter. Jelly startled at the sound, curling his tail into a question mark, then skittered off like a monkey. Hank shouted, "Hey, stop, that's my birthday present! Gimme that! Hands off my stick!" They burst into new laughter, and the fight was on. "I WOULD NEVER TOUCH YOUR STICK, YOU LOSER! YOU COULDN'T PAY ME ENOUGH TO TOUCH YOUR STICK!"

Nat picked up her shopping bag and went through the sample-house living room, sinking into the dense burgundy carpet and following the noise to the great room. She crossed the threshold into a House amp; Garden version of country casual, except for the horseplay between Hank and her brothers. The boys were fighting over a wooden cue stick, bumping the coffee table. All her brothers had her father's huge, heavy-boned frame and his thick, dark hair, deep brown eyes, and largish noses and lips, as if Big John had called all the genetic plays. The family resemblance was so strong their brawl looked like a fistfight among overgrown triplets.

"Hey, watch it!" Junior swung a cue stick at Paul and Tom, who grabbed the narrow end and struggled to wrest it back.

"I got dibs first game!" Tom called out, holding the cue stick until Hank wrestled it from him. The others jumped in, the four of them in silk ties and oxford shirts, making a corporate scrum and almost knocking over her mother as she walked past with an empty china platter.

"Paul, put your back into it!" Her father stuck out his tasseled loafer and almost tripped his youngest son, which was when Hank noticed Nat.

"Hi, babe!" he called from the melee. "We're gonna play pool with my new stick!"

"Happy Birthday, Hank." Nat waved. "Now you have to grow up. All of you."

"No, stop!" Tom shouted, as Junior broke free with the cue stick and ran for the door. Nat stepped aside at just the right time, from years of practice.

"That's mine!" Hank bolted after Junior, chased by Paul and Tom, an express train of flying ties.

"I'll take you all!" her father yelled, hustling to bring up the rear. At sixty, he was still quarterback-broad in a smooth blue shirt, Hermes tie, and dark pressed slacks. He had conventionally handsome features, round brown eyes with deep crow's-feet, and thinning hair a shade too dark to be completely credible. He ran past, trailing Aramis.

"Hi, Dad," Nat called out, but he had already gone. The room fell abruptly quiet, as if the life had gone out of it, leaving the women alone with Tony Bennett. Nat trailed her mother as she made her way back to the kitchen. Ivory-enameled cabinets lined the walls above a built-in plate holder and a tile backsplash in floral curlicues. "New tile, Ma?"

"It's an upgrade."

"Pretty."

"Did you get the cake?"

"Chocolate with red roses, and two kinds of cheesecake, plain and cherry." Nat picked up the Whole Foods bag, crossed to the glistening Sub-Zero, and made room for the bag, sliding it inside. "How can I help?"

"I'm fine. Table's almost set. I just need the napkins."

Nat folded the napkins, seven in all. "No girlfriends tonight?"

"The boys came straight from the settlement, so no. It's enough work with just us, believe me."

Nat felt a twinge. "I feel guilty that you're doing so much." Don't be silly. I was home all day. Your father didn't need me."

“Well, thanks." Nat came over to the granite counter, next to her mother. The former Diane Somers had been a flight attendant when she met John Greco in the first-class cabin of the now-defunct Eastern Airlines, and they were a match made in heaven, or at least, at 35,000 feet. Then, her mother had been tall, honey-blonde, and pageant-pretty. Today she was only more beautiful. She had azure eyes set off by photogenic crow's-feet, her nose was small and straight, and her mouth generous. She'd smoothed her hair back into a chic pony-tail, her makeup was perfect, and her forehead remained uncreased, though she'd never admit to Botox, even to Nat. Especially to Nat, who asked again, "You sure I can't help?"

"No, I enjoy it." Her mother layered beefsteak tomatoes on a plate, then began to cut a wet, spongy ball of mozzarella, in a routine Nat knew by heart, the way daughters always know their mother's go-to dishes.

"I gather that you guys gave Hank a new cue stick."

"Paul picked it out. It's got his initials on it."

"That was very nice of you."

"We're very nice people," her mother said defensively, and Nat let it go. As much as she loved her mother, she could never get close to her. Diane Somers Greco had transferred her awe of first-class businessmen to her family life, and when she'd called herself a "man's woman," Nat knew what she meant. That a daughter, born third, would always finish fourth.

"How've you been, Mom?"

"Not good." Her mother shook her head, her tone agitated. "I'm just sick about Paul."

"He makes me sick, too." Nat leaned against the counter, and her mother didn't laugh.

"He's got this cold and it won't go away. I'm afraid it's pneumonia, walking pneumonia." Her mother sliced the mozzarella, holding the cheese between clear-lacquered nails and expressing the slightest bit of water from it with her fingertips. "He was playing racquetball and he couldn't catch his breath."

"He was probably just running hard."

"I don't think that's all it is."

"So tell him to go to the doctor, get some antibiotics."

"He won't. He says he's fine." Her mother kept slicing, and whitish water leached from the mozzarella.

"I'm sure he'll be okay. Don't worry, Mom."

"How can I not worry? He was a preemie."

Twenty-six years ago. Nat let it go. She had long ago accepted that Paul was her mother's favorite, though she herself was the runt of the litter.

"I looked on WebMD, and it only made me more nervous. It's not good for people to know everything. I say, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing."

"A little knowledge is better than no knowledge, Mom. You just have to keep it in perspective."

Her mother layered the mozzarella ovals on the tomato plate, and Nat knew she'd said the wrong thing. A moment passed in which Tony Bennett had the world on a string, but she didn't. She tried to get back in the game.

"What does Dad say?"

"He says not to worry."

"Then he's right." Her father never worried; it wasn't the Greco way. He regarded every football injury as proof of the boys' toughness. He and her mother had run the Booster Club at the kids' high school, organized the awards dinners for the coaches, and used whatever house they lived in as the unofficial locker room. Everybody knew the Grecos. They weren't a family, they were a cult.