“No sankoo,” Sophie said through a mouthful of cookie.

Sophie was sitting across from her at the kitchen table, vigorously coloring what appeared to be an orange, six-legged version of Shrek, making roundabout work of a hazelnut biscotti, her favorite.

“You sure?” Jessica asked. “It’s really, really good.”

“No sankoo.”

Damn, Jessica thought. The kid was as stubborn as she was. Whenever Sophie made up her mind about something, she was immovable. This, of course, was good news and bad news. Good news, because it meant that Jessica and Vincent Balzano’s little girl didn’t give up easily. Bad news, because Jessica could envision arguments with the teenaged Sophie Balzano that would make Desert Storm look like a sandbox fracas.

But now that she and Vincent were separated, Jessica wondered how it would affect Sophie in the long term. It was painfully clear that Sophie missed her daddy.

Jessica looked at the head of the table, where Sophie had set a place for Vincent. Granted, the silverware she selected was a small soup ladle and a fondue fork, but it was the effort that mattered. Over the past few months, whenever Sophie went about anything that involved a family setting—including her Saturday-afternoon tea parties in the backyard, soirees generally attended by her menagerie of stuffed bears, ducks, and giraffes—she had always set a place for her father. Sophie was old enough to know that the universe of her small family was upside down, but young enough to believe that little-girl magic just might make it better. It was one of the thousand reasons Jessica’s heart ached every day.

Jessica was just starting to formulate a plan for distracting Sophie so she could get to the sink with her salad bowl full of Cocoa muck when the phone rang. It was Jessica’s first cousin Angela.Angela Giovanni was a year younger, and was the closest thing to a sister Jessica had ever had. “Hey, Homicide Detective Balzano,” Angela said.

“Hey, Angie.”

“Did you sleep?”

“Oh yeah. I got the full two hours.”

“You ready for the big day?”

“Not really.”

“Just wear your tailored armor, you’ll be fine,” Angela said. “If you say so,” Jessica said. “It’s just that...”

“What?”

Jessica’s dread was so unfocused, so general in nature, she had a hard

time putting a name to it. It really did feel like her first day of school. Kindergarten. “It’s just that this is the first thing in my life I’ve ever been afraid of.”

“Hey!” Angela began, revving up her optimism. “Who made it through college in three years?”

It was an old routine for the two of them, but Jessica didn’t mind. Not today. “Me.”

“Who passed the promotion exam on her first try?”

“Me.”

“And who kicked the living, screaming shit out of Ronnie Anselmo for copping a feel during Beetlejuice?”

“That would be me,” Jessica said, even though she remembered not really minding all that much. Ronnie Anselmo was pretty cute. Still, there was a principle.

“Damn straight. Our own little Calista Braveheart,”Angela said. “And remember what Grandma used to say: Meglio un uovo oggi che una gallina domani.”

Jessica flashed on her childhood, on holidays at her grandmother’s house on Christian Street in South Philly, on the aromas of garlic and basil and Asiago and roasting peppers. She recalled the way her grandmother would sit on her tiny front stoop in spring and summer, knitting needles in hand, the seemingly endless afghan spooling on the spotless cement, always green and white, the colors of the Philadelphia Eagles, spouting her witticisms to all who would listen. This one she used all the time. Better an egg today than a chicken tomorrow.

The conversation settled into a tennis match of family inquiries. Everyone was fine, more or less. Then, as expected, Angela said:

“You know, he’s been asking about you.”

Jessica knew exactly who Angela meant by he.

“Oh yeah?”

Patrick Farrell was an emergency room physician at St. Joseph’s Hospital, where Angela worked as an RN. Patrick and Jessica had had a brief, if rather chaste affair before Jessica had gotten engaged to Vincent. She had met him one night when, as a uniformed cop, she brought a neighborhood boy into the ER, a kid who had blown off two fingers with an M-80. She and Patrick had casually dated for about a month.

Jessica was seeing Vincent at the time—himself a uniformed officer out of the Third District. When Vincent popped the question, and Patrick was faced with a commitment, Patrick had deferred. Now, with the separation, Jessica had asked herself somewhere in the neighborhood of a billion times if she had let the good one get away.

“He’s pining, Jess,” Angela said. Angela was the only person north of Mayberry who used words like pining. “Nothing more heartbreaking than a beautiful man in love.”

She was certainly right about the beautiful part. Patrick was that rare black Irish breed—dark hair, dark blue eyes, broad shoulders, dimples. Nobody ever looked better in a white lab coat.

“I’m a married woman, Angie.”

“Not that married.”

“Just tell him I said... hello,” Jessica said.

“Just hello?”

“Yeah. For now. The last thing I need in my life right now is a man.”

“Probably the saddest words I’ve ever heard,” Angela said.

Jessica laughed. “You’re right. It does sound pretty pathetic.”

“Everything all set for tonight?”

“Oh yeah,” Jessica said.

“What’s her name?”

“You ready?”

“Hit me.”

“Sparkle Munoz.”

“Wow,” Angela said. “Sparkle?”

“Sparkle.”

“What do you know about her?”

“I saw a tape of her last fight,” Jessica said. “Powder puff.”

Jessica was one of a small but growing coterie of Philly female boxers. What began as a lark at Police Athletic League gyms, while Jessica tried to lose the weight she had gained during her pregnancy, had grown into a serious pursuit. With a record of 3–0, all three wins by knockout, Jessica was already starting to get some good press. The fact that she wore dusty rose satin trunks with the words jessie balls stitched across the waistband didn’t hurt her image, either.

“You’re gonna be there, right?” Jessica asked.

“Absolutely.”