"I've been put in a situation I can't walk away from," I told Dane on the phone. "So I'll tell you what I want to do, and after you hear me out, you can tell me what choices I have. Or not."

"My God, Ella," he said quietly.

I frowned. "Don't say 'My God, Ella' yet. I haven't even told you my plan."

"I know what it is."

"You do?"

"I knew the moment you left Austin. You've always been the cleanup crew of your family." Dane's resigned kindness was only one step away from pity. I would have preferred hostility. He made me feel as if life was a circus and I had been permanently assigned to walk behind the elephant.

"No one's forcing me to do anything I don't want to do," I protested.

"As far as I know, taking care of your sister's baby has never been on your list of life goals."

"She only had the baby a week ago. I'm allowed to revise my list of life goals, aren't I?"

"Yes. But that doesn't mean I have to revise mine, too." He sighed. "Tell me everything. Believe it or not, I'm on your side."

I explained what had happened, the conversation with Tara, and I finished with a defensive, "It's only three months. And the baby's hardly any trouble at all." Unless you happen to like sleep, I thought. "So I'm going to look for a furnished apartment in Houston, and stay here until Tara gets better. I think Liza might help out, too. And then I'll go back to our apartment in Austin. To you." I went for a brisk finish. "Sound like a good plan?"

"It sounds like a plan," he said. I heard the soft, slow expulsion of a pent-up breath, one from the bottom of his lungs. "What do you want me to say, Ella?"

I wanted him to say, Come home. I'll help with the baby. But I told him, "I want to know what you're really thinking."

"I think you're still locked in all the old patterns," Dane said quietly. "Your mother snaps her fingers or your sister screws up, and you put your own life on hold to take care of everything. But it's not just three months, Ella. It could be three years before Tara is able to screw her head on straight. And what if she has more kids? Are you going to take them all in?"

"I've already thought of that," I admitted with difficulty. "But I can't worry about what might happen in the future. Right now there's only Luke, and he needs me."

"What about what you need? You're supposed to be writing a book, aren't you? And how will you keep the column going?"

"I don't know. But other people manage to work and take care of their children."

"This isn't your child."

"He's part of my family."

"You don't have a family, Ella."

Although I had made similar comments in the past, it rankled to hear him say it. "We're individuals bound by a pattern of reciprocal obligation," I said. "If a group of chimps in the Amazon can be called a family, I think the Varners qualify."

"Considering the fact that chimps occasionally cannibalize each other, I might agree with that."

I reflected that I shouldn't have confided quite so much about the Varners to Dane. "I hate arguing with you," I muttered. "You know too much about me."

"You'd hate it even more if I let you make the wrong decision without saying anything about it."

"I think it's the right decision. The way I'm looking at it, it's the only decision I can live with."

"Fair enough. But I can't live with it."

I took a deep breath. "So where does it leave us if I go ahead and do this? What happens to a four-year relationship?" It was hard for me to believe the person I had depended on more than anyone, a man I trusted and cared for deeply, was drawing such a definitive line in the sand.

"I suppose we could consider this a hiatus," Dane said. I considered that while cold distilled worry seeped through my veins.

"And when I come back we'll pick up where we left off? "

"We can try."

"What do you mean try?"

"You can stick something in the freezer and thaw it out three months later, but it's never exactly the same."

"But you'll promise to wait for me, right?" "

Wait for you how?"

"I mean you won't sleep with someone else."

"Ella, neither of us can promise not to sleep with someone else."

My jaw dropped. "We can't?"

"Of course not. In a mature relationship there are no promises and no guarantees. We don't own each other."

"Dane, I thought we were exclusive." I realized that for the second time that day, I was whining. A new thought occurred to me. "Have you ever cheated on me?"

"I wouldn't call it cheating. But no, I haven't."

"What if I slept with someone else? Wouldn't you feel jealous?"

"I wouldn't deny you the chance to experience other relationships freely, if that was what you wanted. It's a matter of trust. And openness."

"We have an open relationship?"

"If you want to label it that way, yes."

I had rarely, if ever, been so stunned. The basic assumptions I had made about Dane and me were being casually overturned. "My God. How can we have had an open relationship when I didn't know it? What are the rules for that?"

Dane sounded vaguely amused. "There are no rules for us, Ella. There never have been. That's the only reason you've stayed with me this long. The minute I tried to confine you in any way, you'd have been out of there."

My head was filled with arguments and demands. I wondered if he was right. I was afraid he was. "Somehow," I said slowly, "I've always thought of myself as a conventional person. Way too conventional for a relationship with no structure."

"Miss Independent is," he said. "The advice she gives other people follows a definite set of rules. But as Ella-no, you're not conventional."

"But I'm Miss Independent and Ella," I protested. "Where's the real me in all of that?"

"Apparently the real you is in Houston," he said. "And I wish you'd come back."

"I'd like to bring the baby home for just a few days, until I figure things out."

"That doesn't work for me," Dane said promptly.

I scowled. "It's my apartment, too. I want to stay in my half."

"Fine. I'll crash somewhere else until you and the baby are gone. Or I'll move out and you can have the whole place-"

"No." Instinctively I knew that if Dane were forced out because I had chosen to take care of Luke, I might lose him for good. "Never mind, you stay there. I'll find a temporary place for me and Luke."

"I'll help any way I can," Dane said. "I'll assume your share of the monthly rent for as long as you need."

I was annoyed by the offer. And I was as irate as a flank-strapped bull because of his refusal to accept Luke. But most of all I was frightened by the revelation that we were in a relationship with no rules and no promises. Because it meant I was no longer certain of him.

Or of me.

"Thanks," I said sullenly. "I'll let you know where we end up."

"The first thing we have to do, " I told Luke the next day, "is find a nice place we can rent or sublet. Should we focus on the downtown area? Montrose? Or would you be open to finding something close by in Sugar Land? We could always go to Austin, but we'd have to take care to avoid you-know-who. And it's a lot more expensive to rent in Austin."

Luke looked contemplative, sucking slowly on the bottle as if he were mulling the possibilities.

"Are you thinking it over?" I asked him. "Or are you working on another dirty diaper?"

I had spent the previous evening doing a lot of Googling, mostly on infant care. I had read pages on diapering dos-and-don'ts, milestones for the first month of life, and schedules of pediatric visits. I had even found directions on how to trim a baby's nails. "It says here, Luke," I had reported, "that you're supposed to be sleeping fifteen to eighteen hours a day. You need to work on that. It also says I'm supposed to sanitize all the stuff you put your mouth on. And it says you're going to learn how to smile by the end of the month."