Marah's mouth dropped open. "But it was a birthday present."

On the day of the recital Marah was so nervous and excited she could barely contain her emotions. As usual, the stress of it all turned her into a pint-sized diva given to jumbo-jet-sized tantrums. Now she stood by the dining room table, one hand on her hip, dressed in faded low-rise jeans and a pink top that read Baby One More Time in rhinestones. An inch of skin showed between the bottom of her shirt and the waistband of her jeans. "Where did you put my butterfly barrettes?"

Hunched over the sewing machine, Kate barely glanced up. "They're in your bathroom drawer. Top one. And you're not wearing that top out of the house."

"Everyone gets to dress like this."

Kate shook her head. It wasn't just the recital. Everything with Marah lately was high drama. Her daughter was either giggling and happy or flat-out pissed. Whenever Mom saw her granddaughter she laughed, lit up a smoke, and said, "Oh, the teen years will be fun. You should start drinking before it's too late."

"Yeah, well, your Aunt Tully is an idiot."

"You're breaking my heart. Really. Now go change. I don't have time to argue with you."

Marah sighed dramatically and stormed back upstairs.

Kate bent closer to the machine, put her foot on the pedal, and went back to work.

As it turned out, that ended up being the last time she paused for almost two hours. Then, as soon as she'd finished the costumes for the dance recital, she rushed on to her other chores -- finding hangers, packing the car, helping the boys brush their teeth, and breaking up fights. Thankfully Johnny took care of dinner and the dishes.

At six o'clock, she herded everyone to the car and helped the boys into their car seats, then took her own seat. "Have I forgotten anything?"

Johnny looked at her. "You have spaghetti sauce on your forehead."

She flipped down the visor and saw herself in the tiny rectangular mirror. Sure enough, she had a streak of red across her brow.

"I wondered about that," Johnny said.

"I didn't take a shower," she said, horrified.

She turned to him. "You knew?"

"When I told you it was five o'clock you bit my head off and told me to make dinner."

She groaned. In all the hoopla, she'd forgotten to get herself ready. She was still dressed in her oldest pair of jeans, a baggy UW sweatshirt, and scuffed Adidas. "I look like a bag lady."

"But one who went to college."

Ignoring him, she ran out of the car, hearing Marah shriek behind her, "Wear makeup, Mom!"

Outside, a horn honked.

She grabbed a pair of black silk ankle socks and a pair of suede flats and ran back to the car.

"We're fine," Kate said, only slightly out of breath.

Kate dug through her drawers, found a pair of fairly new black stirrup pants and a thigh-length black and white V-neck sweater. Were stirrup pants still in style? She didn't know. Pulling her hair into a ponytail, she anchored it with a white scrunchie, then brushed her teeth and put on mascara and blush.

"We're going to be late," Marah whined. "Everyone else is probably already there."

They drove through town and parked at the Island Auditorium. Inside, it was pandemonium: twelve girls between the ages of seven and eleven, their harried parents, dozens of rowdy, disinterested siblings, and Miss Parker, their seventy-year-old dance instructor, who demanded strict propriety at all times and somehow managed to corral this wild bunch without ever raising her voice. Kate carried the costumes into the dressing room, where she helped the girls get ready, bobby-pinned and ponytailed and sprayed their hair, and helped them put on a few touches of mascara and lip gloss.

"Of course we did."

Marah grinned at that, showing off her crooked, oversized teeth. "I'm glad you're here, Mommy," she said.

When she was finished, she knelt down in front of her daughter. "You ready?"

Marah hugged her. "I love you, Mommy."

And suddenly it was all worth it: the crazy deadline, the late nights sewing and ironing, the tired, bleeding fingers. She did it all for a split second of togetherness. "Me, too."

Kate held her tightly, smelling the sweet, powdery scent of her. She thought in that moment how close they were to childhood's end and the start of puberty, and she held on too long. These moments were too rare already.

"Did you bring the video camera?"

Marah pulled back, gave her another grin, and ran backstage with her friends. "'Bye!"

Kate got up slowly and went out to the auditorium, where Johnny sat in the third row, center, with a son on either side of him. She searched the seats around them, looking for Tully. "Is she here yet?"

"No. And she hasn't called, either. Maybe something came up." He grinned. "Like a date with George Clooney."

Kate's parents arrived right on time, taking their seats beside her. As always, Mom had the old black Kodak Instamatic dangling from her wrist. "I thought Tully was coming," she said.

The auditorium's back doors banged open. As one, the audience turned.

"She said she was. I hope nothing happened." Kate held a seat for Tully for as long as she could and then finally let it go.

The lights flickered, and the audience fell silent. Miss Parker, dressed now in pink tights and a knee-length black ballet skirt and black leotard, walked out to center stage. She looked every inch the aging prima ballerina. "Hello, there," she said in her soft, querulous voice. "As you know, I'm --"

Smiling, Kate took her seat beside Lucas. All around her, parents and grandparents filed into their seats, bringing out their video cameras as soon as they sat down.

Tully stood there, looking like she'd just left the Grammys. Her short blond-streaked hair gave her a gamine kind of beauty that made her smile look even bigger. She wore a stunning forest-green silk dress that hung from one shoulder and nipped in at her still-small waist.

Whispers overtook the audience. Tallulah Hart… even prettier in person… No one was listening to Miss Parker's introduction.

"How does she stay looking so good?" Mom asked, leaning close.

"Plastic surgery and a battalion of makeup artists."

Waving at the Mularkeys, Tully walked to an empty aisle seat in the front row and sat down.

Mom laughed at that and squeezed her hand as if to remind Kate that she was just as pretty.

The house lights dimmed and Maggie Levine, dressed as the blue fairy, danced onstage. Her sister, Cleo, and the rest of the girls followed, pirouetting and prancing in what was supposed to be unison. The little ones watched the more experienced dancers intently, executing every movement a second too late.

The gawkiness only made it more magical. It was all Kate could do not to cry; then Johnny reached over Lucas and held her hand just as Marah twirled onstage. Halfway through her routine she saw Tully and stopped right in the middle of the stage, waving wildly.

Laughter rippled through the audience when Tully waved back.

Marah headed straight for her godmother. She launched herself off the stage and landed in Tully's arms. A crowd formed around them, people wanting autographs and introductions. All the while, Marah beamed with pride.

"You'll see," Tully said, winking at Kate. In a pack, the family moved up the aisle and went outside.

Kate turned to Tully. "Are you kidding me?"

When the performance was over, the applause was enthusiastic. The girls took several curtain calls, then giggled and ran for their families.

There, parked at the curb, was a pink stretch limousine.

When the swarm dissipated, Tully headed for the family, hugging them each in turn. She slung an arm around Kate's shoulder and used her other hand to hold on to Marah. "I have a surprise for my goddaughter," she said loudly.

Marah screamed.

Marah giggled and jumped up and down. "What is it?"

"Isn't it cool? You wouldn't believe how hard it was to find. Come on, get in, everyone." She opened the door and they all piled into the plush black interior. Tiny red and blue lights illuminated the ceiling.

They stayed in the car for the entire ferry ride; not once did Marah stop talking to Tully.

Marah snuggled close to Tully, held her hand. "This is the best surprise ever," she said. "Did you think I was good?"

On the Seattle side, the car started up again and they were driven around the city as if they were tourists on vacation, then they pulled into a brightly lit porte cochere, where a hotel doorman came out to greet them. He opened the door and bent down. "And which of you lovely ladies is Marah Rose?"

Marah instantly raised her hand, giggling. "I am."

He pulled a single pink rose from behind his back and handed it to her.

Marah threw her an irritated look. "Thank you."

"Say thank you, Marah," Kate said more sharply than she'd intended.

"You were perfect," Tully said.

Marah looked awestruck. "Wow."

Tully led them into the hotel. On the top floor, she opened the door to a gigantic suite where all kinds of kid-type play stations had been set up -- bouncing rooms and virtual boxing and miniature bumper cars. All the girls from the recital were already there with their families. In the center of the room was a white-draped table. On it was a huge tiered pink cake adorned with tiny frosted ballerinas.

"Perhaps just a bit."

When Kate and Tully were alone, Kate said, "You sure know how to make an entrance. Marah will be talking about this for years."

Mom laughed. Dad shook his head. "Come on, Margie, Johnny," he finally said. "Let's check out the bar."

"Too much?" Tully asked.

"Aunt Tully," Marah screamed, hugging her. "This is awesome. I love you."

"I wanted to get a pony, but I thought that would be over the top."

Tully gave her a bright smile, but it wasn't the real thing. Kate instantly recognized the pretense. "What's wrong?"

Kate stood there, watching her daughter practically swoon over her godmother. Although she hated to admit it, she felt a pinch of jealousy. This was supposed to have been their night; hers and Marah's.

Before Tully could answer, Marah came bouncing back, her little face shining with joy. "We all want a picture with you, Aunt Tully."

"I love you, too, princess. Now go play with your friends."

Everyone stood there for a moment, stunned. Johnny recovered first. Carrying William, he sidled up to Tully. "This is not spoiling her?"

Across from them, Kate slept against Johnny, who also had his eyes closed. A small boy lay tucked alongside each of them. They looked like the Hallmark version of family perfection.

The limousine turned onto the beach road.

Tully sat in the limousine, with Marah's head in her lap, stroking her goddaughter's silky black hair.

Marah blinked slowly awake. "I love you, Aunt Tully."

Tully's heart closed like a fist around those words, and she felt a swell of almost painful emotion. She used to think that success was like gold, worth sifting through mud for, and that love would always be there, waiting somehow on the riverbanks for her when she was done panning. She couldn't imagine now why she'd thought that, given her background. She ought to have recognized love's scarcity early on. If success were gold, lying in rivers, love was a diamond, buried hundreds of feet beneath the surface of the earth and unrecognizable in its natural form. No wonder it touched her so deeply to hear those words from Marah. They'd been so rare in her life. "I love you, too, Marah Rose."

Tully kissed Marah's soft pink cheek. "We're almost home, princess."

Kate came down the stairs at last, sighing tiredly, holding a pile of afghans in her arms. "Okay, Tully. What's going on?"

The limo pulled into the driveway, tires crunching on gravel, and parked. It took forever for the family to get out of the car, walk into the house. They all immediately headed upstairs.

Tully sat down in one of the weathered Adirondack chairs and spread the knitted blanket over her. After all these years and no doubt countless washings, it still smelled of Mrs. M.'s menthol cigarettes and perfume.

"What do you mean?"

Kate grabbed her arm and led her through the toy-strewn house. At the kitchen, Kate paused just long enough to pour two glasses of white wine and then they went outside to the chairs positioned in the grass. The quiet gurgling noise of the waves took Tully back more than twenty years, to those nights they used to sneak out and sit by the river, talking about boys and sharing smokes.

Tully stood in the empty living room, unsure of what to do. The floorboards creaked. She'd tried to merge into the lane of their nighttime routine, but she kept getting in the way, so finally she gave up.

"How long have we been best friends?"

"And you think I can't tell when something's wrong?"

"What should we talk about?"

Kate drew up her blanketed knees and rested her chin on the bumpy summit, then looked at Tully. "Talk," she said.

Tully sat back, sipping her wine. The truth was that she wanted to talk about this -- it was, after all, part of the reason she'd flown all the way across the country -- and yet, now that she was here with her best friend again, she didn't know how to start. Worse than that, she felt like an idiot complaining about what was missing in her life. She had so much.

"Since David Cassidy was groovy."

"Someday you'll know what it's like."

"I thought you were crazy to give up your career. For four years, every time I called you Marah was screaming in the background. I kept thinking I'd kill myself if that were my life, but you sounded frustrated and pissed off and amazingly happy. I could never quite get it."

"No, I won't. I'm almost forty, Kate." She finally looked at Kate. "I guess I was the crazy one, wanting nothing but the career."

Kate stared out at the waves slapping the shore. "In the tabloids last week there was a sixty-year-old woman who gave birth."

"Thank you, Obi-Wan."

"I'm going to be sorry I complained, aren't I?"

Tully laughed. "You are such a bitch."

"You are no fun whatsoever, you know that?"

They walked through the darkened house. At the guest bedroom door, Kate turned to her. "No more spoiling Marah, okay? She already thinks you hung the moon."

It wasn't until much later, when Tully lay on the bumpy, sagging mattress of the hide-a-bed, staring out the window at the Big Dipper, that she realized she hadn't asked Kate about her own life.

"Yeah. But sometimes… it's not enough. I know that's a greedy thing to say, but I'm tired of working eighteen hours a day and coming home to an empty house."

"Oh, yeah."

"Come on, Katie. I made more than two million dollars last year, what am I supposed to do with it all?"

"Give it to charity. Just no more pink limos, okay?"

"I know. Now come on, poor little mega-rich girl, I'll show you to your room."

"You can change your life, you know. But you have to really want to."

"It's a hell of a career."

Fear changed everyone and everything, and yet, as always, life went on. Hour by hour, day by day, while politicians and military personnel were looking for bombs and terrorists, and while the Justice Department was tearing down Enron's papery walls, families went on with their ordinary lives. Kate continued to run her errands and raise her children and love her husband. If she held on to all of them a little more tightly and kept them closer to home, everyone understood: the world wasn't as safe as it had been before.

Kate stared at the calendar that hung on the wall by her refrigerator. It seemed impossible to believe that time was passing so quickly, but the proof was right there in front of her. It was November of 2002, and the past fourteen months had changed the world. In September of last year terrorists had flown airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, killing thousands. Another plane had been hijacked and ultimately crashed, leaving no survivors. Car and suicide bombers had become part of the nightly news; the search for weapons of mass destruction had begun. Words like Al-Qaeda and Taliban and Pakistan came up in every conversation, were repeated on every broadcast.

Now, as Kate sat in the driver's seat of her car, parked in the first position in the carpool lane, she began her Christmas list. She'd only gotten a few items down when the bell rang and kids poured out of the middle school.

Now Thanksgiving was a week away and Christmas lurked just around the corner.

It was the holiday season, the time of year that turned women into card-carrying split personalities. Torn between the joy of the season and the amount of work that joy required, Kate often had trouble slowing down, remembering to savor the precious moments. There was baking to do -- for the school parties, for the ballet bake sale, for donations at Helper House -- and shopping, of course. As magical as Bainbridge Island was, when it came time to do serious gift-combing, one was reminded forcibly that this was a body of land surrounded by water. Thus, malls and department stores were far away. She felt like a mountain climber sometimes, setting out for a vertical ascent without oxygen; the summit was Nordstrom. When you had three kids, it took time to pick out their presents, and time was in short supply.

Marah usually came out of the brick building in a clot of girls. Like killer whales, preteen girls traveled in pods. But today she was alone, walking fast, with her head down and her arms crossed tightly.

Kate knew something was wrong. The question was: how bad was it? Her daughter was twelve years old. That meant hormones were boiling through her body, turning her emotions into a witch's cauldron. Everything was big drama these days.

"Hey." Marah climbed into the front passenger seat and reached for he seatbelt, clicking it into place. "Where are the brats?"

"Hey," Kate said tentatively, knowing one wrong word could cause a fight.

"Evan's birthday party. Daddy's going to pick them up on his way home."

"Oh."

Kate pulled out of the parking lane and merged into the stop-and-go traffic on Sportsman's Club Road. All the way home she tried to begin a conversation, but all her pitches turned out to be strikes. At best Marah offered a one-word answer, at worst an eye roll or a dramatic sigh. When they pulled into the garage, Kate gave it one more try. "I'm making cookies for the boys' Thanksgiving party tomorrow. You want to help me?"

Marah finally smiled. "Mr. Robbins got really mad at me. I had to help him clean up after the party."

"I love those cookies."

"So, you want to help me?"

"Emily stayed to help you."

Kate had counted on that. "Remember the year Mrs. Norman brought the same kind and you were so mad you made everyone try both just to prove that ours were better?"

"Sure."

Marah finally looked at her. "Those pumpkin-shaped ones with the orange frosting and green sprinkles?"

For a split second her daughter looked like a little girl again, her dark eyes wide with hope, her lips curving into a hesitant smile. Years' worth of parties were between them now, a net of shared memories.

Marah's smile faded. "Yeah."

"Of course," Kate said.

Kate took care not to react too sharply to that. Although she wanted to grin and say how happy she was, she simply nodded and followed her daughter into the house and then into the kitchen. She'd learned a few things in the last turbulent year about dealing with preteen girls. While they were virtual roller coasters of emotion, you needed to be calm, always.

"But Ash loves them. Remember when --"

Marah went very still. "No," she said in a voice almost too quiet to be heard.

"Did you two have a fight?"

For the next three hours they worked side by side in the big country-style kitchen. Kate reminded her daughter how to sift ingredients together and showed her how to grease a cookie sheet the old-fashioned way. They talked about little things, this and that; nothing important. Kate was gauging the scene like a hunter. Instinctively, she knew when the time was right. They'd just frosted the last of the cookies and were stacking the dirty dishes by the sink when Kate said, "You want to make another batch? We could take them over to Ashley's house."

"She hates me," Marah said, and just like that the floodgates opened. Tears gathered in her eyes.

"I don't know."

"How can you not know?"

Kate lunged for her daughter, grabbed her sleeve, and pulled her into a fierce hug. "I'm right here, Marah," she whispered.

"I just don't, okay?" Marah burst into tears and turned away.

Behind them the door banged open. The twins burst into the house, yelling at each other, making their toy dinosaurs fight. Johnny came in after them, chasing them down. William bumped into an end table, upsetting a glass of water that shouldn't have been left there. The sound of shattering glass rang through the room.

Lucas laughed. "Wil-lie's in tro-uble," he chanted.

Marah hugged her tightly. "I don't know what I did wrong," she wailed, sobbing.

"Sshh," Kate murmured, stroking her daughter's hair as if she were still little. When Marah's crying finally subsided, Kate drew back just enough to look down at her. "Sometimes life is --"

"Uh-oh," William said, looking up at Kate.

Marah wrenched free, and ran upstairs, slamming the door shut behind her.

"Lucas," Johnny said. "Stop teasing your brother. And stay back from the glass on the floor."

Kate sighed and reached for a towel.

The next day, Kate pulled into the school drive-through lane just three minutes before the lunch bell rang. Parking illegally, she hurried into the office, signed Marah out for the day, and then walked down to her classroom. Last night, after the moment of conversation and connection between them, Marah had shut Kate out again. No amount of prompting could restart the engine, and so Kate had had to formulate plan B. A surprise attack.

The easy victory surprised Marah. Kate smiled at her, touched her shoulder. "See you in a minute."

All the kids except one.

Ordinarily Kate would make a comment about that and force Marah to walk out with her, but her daughter was emotionally fragile right now. That was why Kate was here. "Okay."

"What are you doing here?"

"You'll see. Get your things. We're leaving."

The bell rang and the kids ran from the room, talking loudly.

When they were alone, Kate went to Marah.

Marah's face wore the what-are-you-doing-at-school-embarrassing-me grimace. Kate was more than familiar with it. She knew the middle school rules: parents should be invisible.

Marah stared up at her, obviously assessing the situation from every possible social angle. "Okay. I'll meet you at the car, okay?"

Most of the kids smiled at her and said hello. That was one of the benefits of constant volunteering: everyone knew you. All the kids looked happy to see her -- or at least happy for this disruption in class.

Peering through the rectangular glass window, she knocked once, saw the teacher wave at her, and went inside.

Actually, it took a bit longer than that, but not much. In no time, Marah was in the passenger seat, buckling up. "Where are we going?"

"Well, first we're going out to lunch."

"And something else. A surprise." Kate drove to the diner-style restaurant that was next door to the brand-new multiplex theater on the island.

"You got me out of school to have lunch?"

"I'm going to have a cheeseburger, fries, and a strawberry milkshake," Kate said when they were seated.

"She hates me. I don't even know what I did to her."

"Me, too."

The waitress delivered their shakes. Kate took a sip. It was probably her first ice-cream product since the twins' birth and it tasted like Heaven. "Ashley still being mean to you?" she finally said.

After the waitress took their orders and left, Kate looked at her daughter. Slouched down in the blue vinyl seat, she looked thin and angular, a girl bursting into adolescence. Her black hair, messy and unkempt now, would someday be a crowning glory, and her brown eyes revealed every nuance of emotion she felt. Now she looked bereft.

Kate had been thinking a lot about what to say, how to handle this first heartbreak. Like all mothers, she would do anything in the world to keep her daughter safe and whole, but some dangers couldn't be fully protected against, they could only be experienced and then understood. That was one of the many lessons this country had learned this year, and even though some things had changed for them all, some things had stayed the same.

"In fifth grade, I had two very best friends. For years, we did everything together -- showed our horses at the fair, had slumber parties, hung out at the lake in the summer. Grandma called us the three horse-keteers. And then one summer, when I was almost fourteen, they stopped liking me. I still don't know why. They started hanging around with boys and went to parties and they never called me again. Every day I went to school and sat on the bus by myself and ate lunch by myself, and every night I cried before I went to sleep."

"Really?"

Kate nodded. "I can still remember how much it hurt my feelings."

"Well, when I was at my very most miserable -- and I mean miserable, you should have seen me with my braces and dork-o-rama glasses --"

"What happened?"

"I got up and went to school."

"And Aunt Tully was waiting at the bus stop. She was the coolest-looking girl I'd ever seen. I figured she'd never want to be friends with me. But you know what I found out?"

Marah giggled.

"And?"

"How do you make friends like that?"

"What?"

"Inside, where it counts, she was as scared and lonely as I was. We became best friends that year. Real friends. The kind that don't purposely hurt your feelings or stop liking you for no reason."

"That's the hard part, Marah. To make real friends you have to put yourself out there. Sometimes people will let you down -- girls can be really mean to each other -- but you can't let that stop you. If you get hurt, you just pick yourself up, dust off your feelings, and try again. Somewhere in your class is the girl who will be friends with you all through high school. I promise. You just have to find her."

Marah frowned at that, thinking.

The waitress delivered their meals, left the bill, and walked away.

Before she took a bite of her cheeseburger, Marah said, "Emily's nice."

Kate had hoped Marah would remember that. She and Emily had been inseparable in grade school but had drifted apart in recent years. "Yes, she is."

Marah tore off the shimmery paper, revealing the paperback book that had been beneath it.

"The Hobbit," Marah said, looking up.

Kate saw her daughter finally smile, and it lit Kate up inside, that tiny change. They talked about little things through lunch, mostly fashions, about which Marah already obsessed and Kate knew next to nothing. When she'd paid the bill and they were ready to leave, Kate said, "There's one more thing." She reached into her handbag and pulled out a small wrapped package. "This is for you."

"In that year when I had no friends, I wasn't completely alone. I had books to keep me company, and that is the start of one of my favorite stories of all time. I must have read The Lord of the Rings ten times in my life. I don't think you're quite ready for The Hobbit yet, but someday soon, maybe in a few years, something will happen to hurt your feelings again. Maybe you'll feel alone with your sadness, not ready to share it with me or Daddy, and if that happens, you'll remember this book on your nightstand. You can read it then, let it take you away. It sounds silly, but it really helped me when I was thirteen."

To the world at large, perhaps this was an ordinary moment in an ordinary day, but to Kate it was extraordinary. This was the reason she'd chosen to stay home instead of work. She judged the meaning of her life in nanoseconds, perhaps, but she wouldn't trade this instant for anything. "I love you, too. That's why we're playing hooky for the rest of the day. We're going to go to a matinee of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets."

Kate stared at her daughter for just a moment longer, feeling a pinch in her chest. It was going by so fast, these baby/little girl years were almost gone.

Kate laughed. "I just hope you remember that when you're a teenager."

Marah looked slightly confused by the receipt of a gift she was too young to enjoy, but she said, "Thank you," anyway.

"I love you, Mommy," Marah said.

Marah slid out of the booth, grinning. "You're the best mommy ever."