Aidan frowned as he listened.

And I'm sorry if I made the wrong decision, but it was the only one I could make at the time. I thought it was best for my child.

Aidan stood up again, his mouth slowly twisting in grief. News flash, Mom: It wasn't.

Fine. We can talk more about this later, when you've cooled off. Kat stood up, too. Do you need some money this week? She reached into her purse, but Aidan placed his hand on her wrist.

She looked up at him. He looked down at her, the pain distorting the shape of his handsome face. I don't need anything from you anymore, Mom, he said softly. You've done plenty.

Aidan turned his back on her and walked out of the diner without another word.

Kat followed, perfectly aware of the way the grill cook checked her out as she went through the door.

She called Nola from her cell phone, watching Aidan's form disappear down Eastern Avenue. She could barely hear Nola's voice over the racket of delivery trucks and cars without mufflers.

How'd it go?

Oh, just /super/! Kat turned away from the street noise and back toward the diner but spun right back around when the grill cook winked at her.

That bad?

Kat sighed, raising her voice. If I'm lucky, he'll forgive me by the time he's seventy.

Oh, well, hon… Nola sounded thoughtful. You'll only be eighty-something, and you know what they sayeighty is the new thirty!

Riley turned on the desk lamp, determined to power through these last few charts before he went home for the night. He hadn't eaten since breakfast and his head throbbed, but the sooner he finished, the sooner he would have time to call his son.

Riley reached into his pants pocket and touched the wallet-sized photo Kat had given him, with a cell phone number on the back. He'd already memorized it.

With a sigh of resignation, Riley clicked on the miniature tape recorder and resumed his dictation: Patient is a forty-seven-year-old premenopausal female presenting with a variety of non-specific symptoms. … He released the record button while he scanned the paperwork, then spoke into the mike again: Dizziness, headache, body aches, joint pain, insomnia, depression He stopped, suddenly aware that he'd dictated these same words many times that day. Riley tossed the recorder to his desk.

You weren't meant to live like this, he said, knowing the reprimand was more for himself than Mrs. Anita Prejean, the premenopausal woman tucked away inside that chart.

Riley rose from his chair and paced his office.

Riley figured that Mrs. Prejean's symptoms were caused by what was, in his opinion, the world's number-one diseaseunfinished business. After six years as a primary-care physician, Riley could say that most people got sick because they lived a life of liesa simple reality that was almost impossible to cure. The lies led to stress, which affected every organ system in the human body. He saw it all day, every day. And sometimes he thought of himself as nothing more than a lifeguard at an alligator-infested swamp, where all he could do was fix the latest flesh wound before he threw the swimmer back.

There were all kinds of lies, of course. There were the direct kinds, like marital affairs, dishonest business practices, and stealing what didn't belong to you. And there were the lies of omission and neglectsecrets never shared, anger never expressed, feelings shoved down so deep that people couldn't even put a name on what they felt. Patient after patient had come to him over the years with physical complaints he could trace directly to the accumulated stress of dishonesty. Lurking beneath the surface of their lives were silent burdens of guilt, shame, and bitterness, the inability to forgive oneself and others, and buried fears powerful enough to squeeze the joy out of the present day.

And nobody was immune.

Riley wandered to the exposed-brick wall of his office. He stared at everything displayed before himthe slew of diplomas, board certifications, awards. All the family photos.

His gaze fell on his parents' official wedding portrait. It was 1968, a summer of free love, race riots, and assassinations in the rest of the country. Not in Persuasion. From what he'd always heard, life had gone on like it always had around here, with mine strikes and unemployment worries. The only ripple was that every few months, word would come that another boy would not be coming home from Vietnam to exchange his camouflaged infantry helmet for a miner's hard hat.

Riley stared at his parents' young faces, amazed at the combination of innocence and resolve he saw there. He wondered what could have been racing through their minds the instant the camera flashed, what they feared, what they hoped for, whether they already knew which pieces of themselves each would have to keep hidden from the other in order to survive.

Big Daddy looked so fresh and handsome, the familiar crevices at his mouth and eyes not yet carved into his face. His Marine Corps head was shaved brutally close, and his jawline was fixed in seriousness, even on his wedding day. A week later, he would be off-loading from a Huey in a jungle clearing near Cambodia.

And there was Riley's mother, the former Miss Eliza Starliper, the town's great beauty. Her brown hair was teased ridiculously high, held in place by a tiny white bow that looked too dainty for the job. She had a sly smile on her lovely lips, as if she couldn't believe what she'd just pulled off. Eliza's beauty had meshed with Aidan Bohland's small-town prestige, and a new family had been born.

Riley's gaze moved toward the photo of Matt, Big Daddy, and himself fly-fishing in Wyoming the summer he'd finished his residency. A rumbling of regret moved through him. His own boy would have been about twelve that summer. He should have been with them. Instead, he was loose in the world, maybe playing baseball like all the Bohlands before him, doing homework, arguing with his mom, and thinking his father didn't love him. It was almost too much to bear.

There was a lot to make up for in that young man's life, and Riley knew he'd do whatever it took. He'd repair the lies. Erase the half-truths.

He'd tell all the untold stories. He'd make sure his son didn't go another day with only part of the picture.

Not /his/ son.

Riley backed away from the photos and stared out at Main Street. Who was he kidding? He was no superhero. He wasn't even courageous enough to be honest with his own brother about how he'd been paying for the clinic project. How was he going to be the kind of dad he wanted to be?

The door to his office creaked open without a knock, and Riley knew it could only be Matt.

Did you find her? Riley heard the impatience in his own voice as he spun around.

Oh yeah. No problem. Matt stayed in the doorway, not moving inside. He frowned a little. You think too much, Bro.

Would you want a doctor who didn't?

Matt chuckled. You weren't thinking about medicine and you know it.

Where is she?

She's at home in Baltimore.

That's good.

But do you want to hear the funny part?

Riley raised his eyebrows. There's a funny part?

Matt chuckled. The thing is, Kat was right where BettyAnn said she was, all along.

Riley jerked his head back in disbelief. But we know she wasn't.

And, Matt added, she was in Baltimore at the same time. Let's get some fresh air and I'll tell you all about it.

Riley took off his white coat and tossed it over the back of his office chair. Once he turned off the lights and set the security system, he and Matt headed up Main.

Did you eat? Matt asked.

No, I didn't eat. Just tell me what you found out.

Matt shook his head and laughed again, clearly relishing whatever it was that he was about to share. Check this out, Riley. When BettyAnn was about to die, try to remember /exactly/ what she said to you, OK?