“Then give yourself a break. Rest up, eat a meal, let your mom take care of you. You don’t want to be losing your cookies in front of the ME ’cause you’re overstressed.”

Russ grunted. It was as close as he could get to acknowledging Lyle was right.

“If I drop myself at the station, will you be able to drive home?” Lyle asked.

“Yes.” Jesus, he needed to get a grip, before his men slung him in a wheel-chair and started spoon-feeding him farina.

“Okay, then.”

The way from the Traceys’ brought them into town on Route 117, up the hill along the river, curving by the gazebo to where Elm and 117 converged onto Church Street.

Through the snowy silver maple trees, he could see the gray stone stronghold of St. Alban’s. She was in there, behind one of the diamond-paned windows, a block away and as far out of reach as the moon.

On his CD player, Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks was crooning, Without you, I’m not okay, and without you, I’ve lost my way…

If he lived through this mess, he was never listening to country music again.

Clare Fergusson looked at the glossy pine-green door and wondered why it was that a closed door was the most frightening thing in the world. In her day, she had hauled soldiers into the open bay of her helicopter with enemy fire splattering the sands around them. She had been held at gunpoint by an angry, terrified woman. She had crawled through snake-infested swamps to prove to her survival instructor that she was as tough as any man in his course.

Those things had never scared her like a closed door. The door to her sister Grace’s hospital room, the first time she had to enter, knowing there was no hope. The door to her colonel’s office, the day she told him she was resigning her commission to enter the seminary. The door between the sacristy and the nave, stepping through to celebrate her first Eucharist as St. Alban’s rector.

The door to Margy Van Alstyne’s house.

Okay. She would give Margy her condolences and see if there was anything she could do. That was, if Margy didn’t slam the door in her face. She took a deep breath. The cold air burned her lungs, and she coughed.

The door opened. “You gonna come in, or are you gonna stand out there until your feet freeze?”

Well, when you put it like that… Clare stomped up the low granite steps and kicked her boots against the doorjamb. Margy held the door wide to allow her to pass. The small kitchen was steamy, and Clare could hear the sloshing of the washing machine in the corner.

“Take off your coat before you parboil,” Margy said. Clare shucked her parka and barely had time to drape it over one of the ladder-back chairs before she was caught in a fierce hug. “I’m glad you’re here, and that’s a fact,” Margy said. “Want some coffee? It’s shade-grown, fair-trade.”

Clare almost laughed at the normalcy of it all. “That sounds good,” she said.

“Help yourself to some of the coffee cake.” Margy waved at the table, where cellophane-and tinfoil-wrapped platters crowded against stacks of antiwar tracts. “The food started arriving this morning and hasn’t let up yet.”

Clare’s grandmother Fergusson reared up out of her head. I can’t believe you made a condolence call without so much as a store-bought pie! “Uh,” she said, “I should’ve-”

Margy finished scooping coffee into the machine and shook her head as she poured the water in. “Don’t worry. If I get any more casseroles, I’ll have to store ’em outside in a snowbank.”

She took two mugs out of the dish drainer and gestured for Clare to take a seat. “I didn’t know if I’d get to see you,” she said, at the same moment Clare blurted, “I didn’t know if you’d want to see me.”

They smiled uncertainly at each other.

“I’m sorry, Margy. I’m so very sorry.”

The older woman laid a cracked and mended sugar bowl on the table. Inside were brown crystals the size of fine gravel. “You may need to get a bit more specific with that.”

“I’m sorry about Linda’s death. I’m sorry I… came between her and your son. I’m sorry-” Clare’s voice broke, and she tried to stop the tears rushing into her eyes. “I’m sorry I made her last days unhappy.” She covered her mouth, but she couldn’t silence her crying. Margy rested her hands on Clare’s shoulders and rubbed her back. “I’m sorry…” Clare hiccupped. “I came here to comfort you. Not to…” A noisy sob cut her off.

“Seems like you’re sorry for an awful lot.”

Clare, wet-faced and choking, nodded.

“You let it all out.” Margy continued to rub her back. “Best thing for a body, to cry it all out.”

So Clare blubbered and wept at Margy Van Alstyne’s kitchen table until her sobs settled to shuddering breaths and her tears dried up.

Margy tipped her chin up. “That’s better, in’t it?”

“I deed to blow my dose,” Clare said.

Margy went to a basket next to the dryer and plucked a handkerchief from the mound of clean laundry. “You’re in luck,” she said, handing it to Clare. Clare blew lustily while Margy ran one of her dishcloths under the faucet. Then she mopped Clare’s face with cold water.

“I feel like a seven-year-old.”

“Everybody needs a little mothering now and again.” Margy poured two mugs of coffee and sat down kitty-corner from Clare. “I suppose you’d like to know how Russell is doing.”

Clare nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

“He’s taking it hard, like you’d think. Of course, in his case, he’s trying to keep it all bottled up. I wish he’d sit down and have a good cry like you just did.” She spooned sugar into her coffee. “He’s at work now. Can you believe it? He thinks finding whoever’s responsible is going to make him feel better. My poor boy.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

Margy looked at her shrewdly. “I dunno. Is there?”

Clare examined the surface of her coffee. “I mean, any way I can help you out.”

“I guess I’ve got things well enough in hand. We can’t make any arrangements until her sister gets here-poor woman, if she didn’t take it some hard when I broke the news. She and Linda’s all that’s left of their family.”

“Who are you going to have do the service?”

“Well, Linda was a Catholic when she was young, but she never attended any church as long as I knew her. I figured I’d ask Dr. Tobin. He’s my pastor over to Center Street Methodist in Fort Henry. Of course”-and she suddenly sounded every one of her seventy-five years-“everything’s on hold until the medical examiner finishes up whatever he has to do. I told that to her sister, but she would fly up here. Janet’s husband’s gone to Albany to pick her up.”

Clare smiled a little. “Sounds like you have things well in hand.” She examined the kitchen. Hand-hooked hot pads shared space with flyers exhorting citizens to STOP THE DREDGING. On the round-shouldered refrigerator, magnets held up grandchildren’s drawings and clippings about acid rain. It was nothing like her grandmother Fergusson’s kitchen in North Carolina, but it had the same feeling. Like you had rounded all the bases and come home safe.

“I should go,” she said, making no effort to rise.

Margy dropped her hand over Clare’s. Her knuckles were swollen. Arthritic. Clare had never noticed before. “There is something I need to talk to someone about.”

Clare looked at her.

“You prob’ly know Russell moved in with me about ten days ago. He seemed to be doing okay. He went to this marriage-counseling thing they were doing and came back and was on a pretty even keel.”

Clare nodded.

“But then Sunday, he took off. Didn’t say where he was going. Didn’t say he wa’nt spending the night here, but I didn’t see him again till Monday noontime. He was… it put me in mind of when he came home from Vietnam. Like his body was here, but all the rest of him was gone. And wherever he was gone to was no good place. He just went upstairs and took a nap, right in the middle of the afternoon. That’s not like him.”