"Where are we going to live?" he said low.

"I don't know yet, honey, but I'll tell you what. When you come home for your spring break, we'll go looking together, okay? It won't matter to Jill. She's hardly home at all anymore. It'll be fun. Just you and me. I know after next summer you'll probably be staying up at State, or going somewhere else for a job or an internship, but you'll always have a room at your ma's place. Wherever it is." She put her arm about him, and gave him a hard hug.

"I hate him!" J. J. said fiercely.

"No, honey, feel sorry for him," Nora told her son. "He's growing old, and he can't face it. It's unlikely Heidi is going to stay with him till death do them part. Your father is going to end up alone one day in spite of everything he has done and everything he has. But we'll always have each other, J. J."

"I'm glad I didn't go to see him while I've been home," J. J. said. "He called and asked Jill and me to go. She went 'cause she thought she might convince him to pay for her other two years at Duke Law. She was really pissed when she got back."

"Because he wouldn't," Nora said softly. "I did try for her too, you know."

"Serves her right," J. J. muttered, "kissing up to Dad and his bitch."

"Honey!" Nora chided her son gently.

"Well, it does," J. J. said angrily. "Why the hell is Dad treating you like this? All you ever did was be exactly what he wanted you to be, and do everything he wanted you to do. I can still remember those parties you used to hostess for Dad's clients and partners when Jill and I were little. They all loved them. They all thought you were great. What happened, Ma? Why doesn't he think you're great anymore?"

"His needs have changed, honey." Nora tried to explain it to her son, although she wasn't certain she really understood it herself. Jeff was having one whale of a midlife crisis. "I don't fit the profile anymore of what he needs, or thinks he needs, now. Heidi does. I'm learning it isn't unusual for men his age to do this. Particularly men in positions of importance or power within their career arenas. Suddenly the wife who provided the backup and support while they were climbing the ladder of success is no longer the wife they want. They want someone young and intelligent because they think it makes them look younger and smarter."

"I'll never be like Dad," J. J. said stonily. "When I marry it's going to be forever."

"I hope it is, honey," Nora told him. "It used to be like that." She stood up. "You had better get your shower. Your bags are all packed. I'm taking you and Maureen to the bus in just an hour."

J. J. arose, and putting his arms about his mother, he hugged her hard, planting a kiss on her cheek. "I'll always love you best, Ma," he said.

"Best of your parents is flattering, honey," she said, "but love the girl you marry one day best of all, and above all other women. That's the way it should be. And if it is that way, then your wife and I will always be friends and never jealous of one another."

Releasing her, he ran off to take his shower, returning forty minutes later smelling of soap, shampoo, and too much aftershave. He was wearing his best worn jeans, a flannel shirt with an Irish sweater over it, and his favorite leather work boots. His hair was wet.

"You can't go out with wet hair," she scolded him. "Use the dryer in my bathroom. You've got time before we have to go."

Grumbling, he returned back upstairs, and when he came down again his hair was dry, and slicked back with some kind of goop he used. "Better?" he demanded to know.

"Better," she said, resigned as she watched him slap his favorite baseball cap, brim backward, on his head. She couldn't convince him that he would ruin his hair with that damned cap on his head all the time. She picked up the car keys from the bowl on the hall table. "Let's ride, Clyde," she said with a small smile.

He picked up his two duffels. "You get everything in here, Ma?" he asked.

"Everything you left out, and some other stuff you forgot," she told him as they walked to the car in the driveway. She popped the trunk, and he tossed his bags inside.

Joe came staggering across the street with Maureen's matching luggage, his daughter followed pulling another suitcase on wheels, and Carla carried a shopping bag that Nora knew had sandwiches, chips, goodies, and juice boxes for the long bus ride. The luggage was all loaded up. Hugs and kisses all around, and Nora got into the car and drove her son and neighbor's daughter to the bus station. Reaching their destination, J. J. and Maureen were out of the car quickly, waving and calling to two other kids they knew, who were obviously returning to State today as well. Then he unloaded the trunk.

"You don't have to wait, Ma," J. J. said. He wasn't embarrassed yet, but he was going to be if she didn't take the hint and go.

How long until she saw him again? Nora wondered, struggling with herself not to cry. "Give me a hug and a kiss, honey," she said, and he did.

"Bye, Ma. I'll call you tonight, okay?"

"Call early," Nora said. "I'm going to bed right away. Tomorrow is going to be a bitch of a day for me. Before eight, okay?"

"Sure," he said, and turning away, he joined his friends as they gathered up all their luggage and began loading it on the waiting bus.

"Bye, Mrs. Buckley," Maureen said, giving her a quick kiss. "Thanks for driving me down here."

"Have a good term, Mo," Nora told the girl. Then she got into the car and drove away. She tucked the car carefully into the garage when she got home. The house was cold when she entered it. She kicked the thermostat up to seventy-two degrees. Screw the cost. It was only for a few hours. It was just a little after 11 a.m. Nora went into the living room. The ornament box was waiting for her. She had pulled it out early this morning. She looked a final time at the tree. It wasn't the biggest she had ever had, but it had been a pretty tree. She removed the many ornaments efficiently, replacing them in their slots in the special box she had bought years ago for just this purpose. When the ornaments were all stowed, she drew off the strands of tiny colored lights, wrapping each strand neatly and placing them in a row on the top shelf of the box. Finished, she closed down the lid of the box. The tree still smelled fragrantly rich with its piney scent.

Nora picked up a telephone handset and called Rick Johnson. "I'm ready now," she said when Carla answered.

"We'll be right over, sweetie," Carla replied. "I'm only half finished."

"I got going early," Nora answered, and hung up the phone.

They were at her house a few minutes later. Together the three of them took the tree from its holder and jostled it out the front door to the curb, where the town would be picking it up on Tuesday next.

"Thanks," Nora told them, turning to go back into her house.

"I'll pick you up at eight a.m. tomorrow," Rick reminded her.

"I'll be ready," Nora said, but she didn't turn to face him.

"Nora, wait a minute," Carla said, catching up with her friend, and walking with her back to her house. "Look, I know tomorrow's going to be a bitch. I have to work, but I'll be home by three thirty, and I'll come over, okay?"

Nora debated a moment, and then said, "Listen, Carla, whatever happens, I don't want you to worry about me, alright? I'll be fine."

"Sure you will," Carla said halfheartedly.

"No, Carla, you don't understand. I'm not going to sign those papers tomorrow. Jeff isn't going to get my house." She put her fingers over Carla's mouth even as her best friend was opening it to speak. "Carla, whatever you see, whatever they tell you, I will be alright. I'm going away. That's why I spoke with Mr. Nicholas all those months ago. I needed to know if I could use The Channel as a refuge, and he said I could. If I don't sign those papers tomorrow, then Jeff is stuck until I do."

"But what good will that really do?" Carla whispered.

"Look, how long do you think Heidi will wait around, especially if because he can't sell the house, he has to get rid of her co-op?"

"But Jeff owns the house," Carla reminded Nora.

"Yes, he does, but I know Jeff far better than Heidi does. How he appears to the public, to his partners, his clients, is far more important to Jeff than anything else."

"Are you trying to break them up so he'll come back to you?" Carla asked, surprised that Nora would even consider such a thing.

Nora shook her head. "I don't want him back," she said, "but yes, if I can break them up, then there is no need to sell the house. At that point, Rick might even be able to convince Jeff to give me the house in exchange for relief of all his other obligations toward me and the kids. Look, Rick says she's been paying the bridge loan. With the way good real estate is going in town, he can sell the co-op for a profit, pay her back, and still come out of it smelling like a rose. He could even have enough to buy himself a small place. Yes, Jill will have to get herself through her last two years of law school, but she'll do it. And I'll have to help J. J. get a student loan so he has a dorm room, but it's possible. I'm taking a gamble, I know, but I just can't let Jeff sell the house!"

"What will happen to you?" Carla asked.

"It will look like I'm unconscious, Mr. Nicholas said," Nora replied.

"And you believe him?" Carla wasn't certain about any of this.

"Yes, I do believe him," Nora said.

"They'll put you in the hospital at first," Carla told her.

"I know."

"How long are you going to stay unconscious?" Carla queried her friend.

"As long as it takes, but knowing that my dear husband has absolutely no patience, I expect a few weeks, a few months at the most," Nora told her companion. "Listen, sweetie, I'm going to be fine. You should see my apartment. It's right out of Architectural Digest. And I've told you about Kyle, and Rolf. Incredible! I have absolutely everything I want there. While I'm going to look like I'm at death's door, I'm going to be having a helluva good time, and the best nonstop sex I've ever known. It's going to be alright, and I already know how this is going to mess up Jeff's life and screw with his mind. I'll bet you the first thing he says is that I did it deliberately."

Carla laughed aloud. "You're right!" she said.

"You can't tell anyone, Carla. Not Rick because he wouldn't believe you, and he'd think you were losing it. Not Rina, Tiff, or Joanne. Give them hope as a nurse, and don't let them be too upset, but you can't tell them what I've done."

"How will you know what's happening in this reality?" Carla asked.

"I don't need to. I know Jeff. And I'll contact you in a few weeks to see how it's all going, okay?"

"How will you contact me?" Carla asked.

"I'm not certain yet, but I think if you want me in your fantasy, I can be there. I'll ask Kyle, and if he doesn't know, Mr. Nicholas's door is always open to me, I'm told. But honestly, I think you just have to put me in your fantasy. I can be a barmaid at one of your island inns, or maybe another female pirate captain you know. You work it out." She gave Carla a hug. "I'm freezing. I've got to go in now."

"Be careful," Carla said. "God, I wish you didn't have to do this!"

"So do I," Nora responded, "but if I don't, by this time tomorrow, I'll have signed my house away and be on my way to a final divorce. I don't give a crap about Jeff, but I'm not letting my house go. Wait a couple of weeks before you contact me unless Jeff cracks sooner, but I don't think he will."

"Okay," Carla said, and then she turned away before she started to cry. She heard the front door of the Buckley house close behind her, and the lock turn with a loud click. Nora's plan scared the hell out of her, but what else could Nora do? Jeff had driven her into a very tight corner. Nora was far braver than she herself was, and Carla would never even have considered that until recently. And what about Jill and J. J.? Nora wouldn't have told them. How could she? Jill, in particular, would have thought her mother crazy. We're all going to have to be there for them, Carla thought to herself.

Nora watched her best friend walking slowing across the street from the bay window of the living room, where the Christmas tree had recently stood. There were needles all over the floor. She got out the vacuum and cleaned them up. Then she took the ornament box back upstairs and stored it in the attic. If she was going away, her house was going to be in perfect condition when they found her unconscious body. She had always had a thing about being in an accident, and strangers coming into her house and finding an unmade bed, or dishes in the sink. It was similar to your mother's warning you to always wear clean underwear.