Christine clicked her mouse, minimizing her browser window, and at last gave me her full attention. She gestured with an open palm toward one of the three leather-upholstered swivel chairs that faced her desk. I took the middle one, feeling a certain trepidation as I did so; Christine had a policy of never offering a seat if the meeting was to be wrapped up quickly.

“Hello, Tom,” she said. She made a solicitous face. “How are you feeling?”

I shrugged a little; there wasn’t much to say. “As well as can be expected, I suppose.”

“Are you in much pain?”

“It comes and goes,” I said. “I’ve got some pills that help.”

“Good,” she said. She was quiet for a time; that was abnormal for Christine, who usually seemed to be in a great hurry. Finally, she spoke again. “How’s Suzanne doing? She holding up all right?”

I didn’t correct her on my wife’s name. “She’s managing. There’s a support group that meets at the Richmond Hill Public Library; she goes to meetings there once a week.”

“I’m sure they’re a comfort to her.”

I said nothing.

“And Richie? How’s he?”

Two in a row was too much. “It’s Ricky,” I said.

“Ah, sorry. How’s he doing?”

I shrugged again. “He’s frightened. But he’s a brave kid.”

Christine gestured toward me, as if that only made sense given who Ricky’s father was. I tipped my head in thanks at the unspoken compliment. She was silent a moment longer, then: “I’ve been talking to Petroff, over in H.R. He says you’re fully covered. You could go on long-term-disability leave and receive eighty-five percent of your salary.”

I blinked and thought carefully about my next words. “I’m not sure it’s your place to be discussing my insurance situation with anyone.”

Christine raised both hands, palms out. “Oh, I didn’t discuss you in particular; I just asked about the general case of an employee with a ter — with a serious illness.” She’d started to say “terminal,” of course, but hadn’t been able to bring herself to use the word. Then she smiled. “And you’re covered. You don’t have to work anymore.”

“I know that. But I want to work.”

“Wouldn’t you rather be spending your time with Suzanne and Rich — Ricky?”

“Susan has her own job, and Ricky’s in grade one; he’s in school full days.”

“Still, Tom, I think . . . Isn’t it time you faced facts? You’re not able to bring a hundred percent to your job anymore. Isn’t it time you took some leave?”

I was in pain, as always, and that just made it harder to control my temper. “I don’t want to take any leave,” I said. “I want to work. Damn it, Christine, my oncologist says it’s good for me to be coming to work every day.”

Christine shook her head, as if saddened that I was unable to see the big picture. “Tom, I’ve got to think of what’s best for the museum.” She took a deep breath. “You must know Lillian Kong.”

“Of course.”

“Well, you know that she quit as curator of fossil vertebrates at the Canadian Museum of Nature to—”

“To protest government cutbacks in spending on museums; yes, I know. She went to Indiana University.”

“Exactly. But I’ve heard through the grapevine that she’s not happy there, either. I think I could entice her to join us here at the ROM, if I move quickly. I know the Museum of the Rockies wants her, too, so she’s certainly not going to be available for long, and . . .”

She trailed off, waiting for me to complete her thought for her. I crossed my arms in front of my chest but said nothing. She looked disappointed that she’d have to spell it out. “And, well, Tom, you are going to be leaving us.”

A tired old joke drifted through my mind: Old curators never die; they just become part of their collections. “I can still do useful work.”

“The chances of me being able to get someone as qualified as Kong a year from now are slim.”

Lillian Kong was a damn fine paleontologist; she’d done some amazing work on ceratopsians and had received enormous amounts of press, including being on the cover of Newsweek and Maclean’s for her contributions to the dinosaur-bird controversy. But, like Christine, she was a dumb-downer: the Canadian Museum of Nature’s displays had become cloyingly populist, and not very informative, under her. She’d doubtless be an ally in Christine’s desire to make the ROM into an “attraction,” and indeed would agree to put pressure on Hollus to do public programming, something I’d steadfastly refused to do.

“Christine, don’t make me go.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t necessarily have to go. You could stay on, doing research. We owe you that.”

“But I would have to step down as department head.”

“Well, the Museum of the Rockies is offering her a very senior position; I won’t be able to entice her here with anything less than — than—”

“Than my job,” I said. “And you can’t afford to pay both of us.”

“You could go on disability leave, but still come in to show her the ropes.”

“If you’ve been talking to Petroff, you know that’s not true. The insurance company won’t pay me unless I declare that I’m too sick to work. Now, yes, they’ve made clear that in terminal cases, they won’t argue the point. If I say I’m too sick, they’ll believe me — but I cannot come into the office and still receive benefits.”

“Getting a scholar of Lillian’s stature would be great for the museum,” Christine said.

“She’s hardly the only option you’ll have to replace me,” I said. “When I have to leave, you can promote Darlene, or — or make an offer to Ralph Chapman; get him to bring his applied-morphometrics lab here. That would be a real coup.”

Christine spread her arms. It was all bigger than her. “I’m sorry, Tom. Really I am.”

I folded my arms across my chest. “This doesn’t have anything to do with finding the best paleontologist. This has to do with our disagreements over how you’ve been running this museum.”

Christine did a credible job of sounding wounded. “Tom, you do me a disservice.”

“I doubt that,” I said. “And — and, besides, what’s Hollus going to do?”

“Well, I’m sure he’ll want to continue his research,” said Christine.

“We’ve been working together. He trusts me.”

“He’ll work just fine with Lillian.”

“No, he won’t,” I said. “We’re a . . .” I felt silly saying it. “We’re a team.”

“He simply needs a competent paleontologist as his guide, and, well, forgive me, Tom, but surely you recognize that it should be someone who will be around for years to come, someone who can document everything he or she has learned from the alien.”

“I’m keeping a meticulous journal,” I said. “I’m writing everything down.”

“Nonetheless, for the sake of the museum—”

I was growing more angry — and more bold. “I could go to any museum or university with a decent fossil collection, and Hollus would come with me. I could get an offer from anywhere I wanted, and, with an alien along for the ride, no one would care about my health.”

“Tom, be reasonable.”

I don’t have to be reasonable,I thought. No one going through what I’m going through has to be reasonable. “It’s nonnegotiable,” I said. “If I go, so does Hollus.”

Christine made a show of studying the woodgrain on her desktop, tracing it with her index finger. “I wonder how Hollus would react if I told him you were using him this way.”

I stuck out my chin. “I wonder how he’d react if I told him how you are treating me.”

We both sat in silence for a time. Finally, I said, “If there’s nothing else, I’ll be getting back to my work.” I made an effort not to stress the final word.

Christine sat motionless, and I got up and left, pain slicing through me, although, of course, I refused to let it show.