THE MINUTE I WALK INTO THE HOSPITAL with Judge at my side, I know I’m in trouble. A security officer—think Hitler in drag with a very bad perm—crosses her arms and blocks my entry at the elevator bank. “Nodogs,” she orders.

“This is a service dog.”

“You’re not blind.”

“I have an irregular heartbeat and he’s CPR certified.”

I head up to the office of Dr. Peter Bergen, a psychiatrist who happens to be the chairman of the medicalethics board at Providence Hospital. I’m here by default: I can’t seem to find my client, who may or may notstill be pursuing her lawsuit. Frankly, after the hearing yesterday I was pissed off—I wanted her to come tome. When she didn’t, I went so far as to sit on her doorstep last night for an hour, but no one showed up ather home; this morning, assuming Anna was with her sister, I came to the hospital—only to be told I couldn’tgo in to see Kate. I can’t find Julia, either, although I fully expected to see her still waiting yesterday on theother side of the door when Judge and I left after the incident at the courthouse. I asked her sister for a cellnumber, at least, but something tells me that 401-GO2-HELL is out of service.

So, because I have nothing better to do, I’m going to work on my case on the off chance that it still exists.

Bergen’s secretary looks like the kind of woman whose bra size ranks higher than her IQ. “Ooh, a puppy!”

she squeals. She reaches out to pat Judge.

“Please. Don’t.” I start to come up with one of my ready replies, but why waste it on her? Then I head for thedoor in the back.

There I find a small, squat man with a stars-and-stripes bandanna over his graying curls, wearing yoga gearand doing Tai Chi. “Busy,” Bergen grunts.

“Something we have in common, Doctor. I’m Campbell Alexander, the attorney who asked for the charts onthe Fitzgerald girl.”

Arms extended forward, the psychiatrist exhales. “I sent them over.”

“You sent Kate Fitzgerald’s records. I need Anna Fitzgerald’s.”

“You know,” he replies, “now is not a very good time for me…”

“Don’t let me interrupt your workout.” I sit down, and Judge lies at my feet. “As I was saying—AnnaFitzgerald? Do you have any notes from the ethics committee about her?”

“The ethics committee has never convened on Anna Fitzgerald’s behalf. It’s her sister who’s the patient.”

I watch him arch his back, then hunch forward. “Do you have any idea how many times Anna’s been both anoutpatient and an inpatient in this hospital?”

“No,” Bergen says.

“I’m counting eight.”

“But those procedures wouldn’t necessarily come before the ethics committee. When the physicians agreewith what the patients want, and vice versa, there’s no conflict. No reason for us to even hear about it.” Dr.

Bergen lowers the foot he has raised in the air and reaches for a towel to mop under his arms. “We all havefull-time jobs, Mr. Alexander. We’re psychiatrists and nurses and doctors and scientists and chaplains. Wedon’t go looking for problems.”

Julia and I leaned against my locker, having an argument about the Virgin Mary. I had been fingering hermiraculous medal—well, actually, it was her collarbone I was after, and the medal had gotten in the way.

“What if,” I said, “she was just some kid who got herself in trouble, and came up with an ingenious way outof it?”

Julia nearly choked. “I think they can even throw you out of the Episcopal Church for that one, Campbell.”

“Think about it—you’re thirteen, or however old they were back then when they were shacking up—and youhave a nice little roll in the hay with Joseph, and before you know it your EPT is coming up positive. You caneither face your father’s wrath, or you can spin a good story. Who’s going to contradict you if you say God’sthe one who knocked you up? Don’t you think Mary’s dad was thinking, ‘I could ground her…but what ifthat causes a plague?’ ”

Just then I jacked open my locker and a hundred condoms spilled out. A bunch of guys from the sailing teammorphed out of their hiding spots, laughing like hyenas. “Figured you could use a new supply,” one of themsaid.

Well, what was I supposed to do? I smiled.

Before I knew it Julia had taken off. For a girl, she ran goddamn fast. I didn’t catch up to her until the schoolwas a distant smudge behind us. “Jewel,” I said, although I didn’t know what should come after that. It wasnot the first time I had made a girl cry, but it was the first time it hurt me to do it. “Should I have deckedthem all? Is that what you want?”

She rounded on me. “What do you tell them about us when you’re in the locker room?”

“I don’t tell them anything.”

“What do you tell your parents about us?”

“I don’t,” I admitted.

“Fuck you,” she said, and she started running again.

The elevator doors open on the third floor, and there’s Julia Romano. We stare at each other for a moment,and then Judge gets up and starts wagging his tail. “Going down?”

She steps inside and pushes the button for the lobby, already lit. But it makes her lean across me, so that I cansmell her hair—vanilla and cinnamon. “What are you doing here?” she asks.

“Becoming supremely disappointed in the state of American health care. How about you?”

“Meeting with Kate’s oncologist, Dr. Chance.”

“I assume that means we still have a lawsuit?”

Julia shakes her head. “I don’t know. No one in that family’s returning my calls, except for Jesse, and that’sstrictly hormonal.”

“Did you go up to—”

“Kate’s room? Yeah. They wouldn’t let me in. Something about dialysis.”

“They said the same thing to me,” I tell her.

“Well, if you talk to her—”

“Look,” I interrupt. “I have to assume we still have a hearing in three days until Anna tells me otherwise. Ifthat’s the case, you and I really need to sit down and figure out what the hell is going on in this kid’s life. Doyou want to grab a cup of coffee?”

“No,” Julia says, and she starts to leave.

“Stop.” When I grasp her arm, she freezes. “I know this is uncomfortable for you. It’s uncomfortable for me,too. But just because you and I can’t seem to grow up doesn’t mean Anna shouldn’t have a chance to.” Thisis accompanied by a particularly hangdog look.

Julia folds her arms. “Did you want to write that one down, so you can use it again?”

I burst out laughing. “Jesus, you’re tough—”

“Oh, stuff it, Campbell. You’re so glib you probably oil your lips every morning.”

That conjures all sorts of images for me, but they involve her body parts.

“You’re right,” she says then.

“Now that I want to write down…” When she starts walking away this time, Judge and I follow.

She heads out of the hospital and down a side street, an alley, and past a tenement before we break into thesunshine again on Mineral Spring Avenue in North Providence. By that time, I’m grateful that my left hand iswrapped tight to the leash of a dog with an excessive amount of teeth. “Chance told me that there’s nothingleft to do for Kate,” Julia tells me.

“You mean other than the kidney transplant.”

“No. Here’s the incredible thing.” She stops walking, plants herself in front of me. “Dr. Chance doesn’t thinkKate’s strong enough.”

“And Sara Fitzgerald’s pushing for it,” I say.

“When you think about it, Campbell, you can’t blame her logic. If Kate’s going to die without the transplantanyway, why not go for it?”

We step delicately around a homeless man and his collection of bottles. “Because the transplant involvesmajor surgery for her other daughter,” I point out. “And putting Anna’s health at risk for a procedure that’snot necessary for her seems a little cavalier.”

Suddenly Julia comes to a halt in front of a small shack with a hand-painted sign, Luigi Ravioli. It looks likethe sort of place they keep dark, so that you don’t notice the rats. “Isn’t there a Starbucks nearby?” I ask, justas an enormous bald man in a white apron opens the door and nearly knocks Julia over.

“Isobella!” he cries, kissing her on both cheeks.

“No, Uncle Luigi, it’s Julia.”

“Julia?” He pulls back and frowns. “You sure? You ought to cut your hair or something, give us a break.”

“You used to get on my case about my hair when it was short.”

“We got on your case about your hair because it was pink.” He looks at me. “You hungry?”

“We were hoping for some coffee, and a quiet table.”

He grins. “A quiet table?”

Julia sighs. “Not that kind of quiet table.”

“Right, right, everything’s a big secret. Come in, I’ll give you the room in the back.” He glances down atJudge. “Dog stays here.”

“Dog comes,” I respond.

“Not in my restaurant,” Luigi insists.

“He’s a service dog, he can’t stay outside.”

Luigi leans close, a couple of inches away from my face. “You’re blind?”

“Color-blind,” I reply. “He tells me when the traffic lights change.”

Julia’s uncle’s mouth turns down at the corners. “Everyone’s a wiseass today,” he says, and then he leads theway.

For weeks, my mother tried to guess the identity of my girlfriend. “It’s Bitsy, right?—the one we met on theVineyard? Or no, wait, it’s not Sheila’s daughter, the redhead, is it?” I told her over and over it was no oneshe knew, when what I really meant was that Julia was no one she would recognize.

“I know what’s right for Anna,” Julia tells me, “but I’m not sure she’s mature enough to make her owndecisions.”

I pick up another piece of antipasto. “If you think she’s justified in filing the petition, then what’s theconflict?”

“Commitment,” Julia says dryly. “Would you like me to define that for you?”

“You know, it’s impolite to unsheathe your claws at the dinner table.”

“Right now, every time Anna’s mom confronts her, she backs off. Every time something happens with Kate,she backs off. And in spite of what she thinks she’s capable of, she hasn’t made a decision of this magnitudebefore—considering what the consequences are going to be to her sister.”

“What if I told you that by the time we have our hearing, she’ll be able to make that decision?”

Julia glances up. “Why are you so sure that’ll happen?”

“I’m always sure of myself.”

She plucks an olive out of the tray between us. “Yeah,” she says quietly. “I remember that.”

spaceAlthough Julia must have had her suspicions, I didn’t tell her about my parents, my house. As we drove intoNewport in my Jeep, I pulled into the driveway of a huge brick mansion. “Campbell,” Julia said. “You’rekidding.”

I circled the loop of the driveway and turned out the other side. “Yeah, I am.”

That way, when I pulled into the house two driveways down, the sprawling Georgian with its rows of beechtrees and its slope to the Bay, it wasn’t quite as imposing. At the very least, it was smaller than the first place.

Julia shook her head. “Your parents are going to take one look at me and pull us apart with a crowbar.”

“They’re gonna love you,” I told her, the first time I lied to Julia, but not the last.

Julia ducks beneath the table with a plateful of pasta. “Here you go, Judge,” she says. “So what’s with thedog?”

“He translates for my Spanish-speaking clients.”

“Really.”

I grin at her. “Really.”

She leans forward, narrowing her eyes. “You know, I have six brothers. I know how you guys work.”

“Do tell.”

“And give away my trade secrets? I don’t think so.” She shakes her head. “Maybe Anna hired you becauseyou’re just as evasive as she is.”

“She hired me because she saw my name in the paper,” I say. “Nothing more to it than that.”

“But why’d you take her on? This isn’t your usual case.”

“How would you know what my usual case is?”

It is said lightly, a joke, but Julia goes mute, and there’s my answer: all these years, she’s been following mycareer.

Sort of like I’ve been following hers.

I clear my throat, uncomfortable, and point to her face. “You’ve got sauce…over there.”

She lifts her napkin and wipes the side of her mouth, but misses completely. “Did I get it off?” she asks.

Leaning forward with my own napkin, I clean the small spot—but then I don’t move away. My hand rests onher cheek. Our eyes lock, and in that instance, we are young again and learning the shape of each other.

“Campbell,” Julia says, “don’t do this to me.”

“Do what?”

“Push me off the same cliff twice.”

When the cell phone in my coat pocket rings, we both jump. Julia inadvertently knocks over her glass ofChianti while I answer. “No, calm down. Calm down. Where are you? Okay, I’m on my way.” Julia stopsmopping the table as I hang up. “I have to go.”

“Is everything all right?”

“That was Anna,” I say. “She’s at the Upper Darby Police Station.”

On the way back to Providence, I tried to come up with at least one awful death per mile for my parents.

Bludgeoning, scalping. Skinning alive and sprinkling with salt. Pickling in gin, although I don’t knowwhether that would be considered torture or simply Nirvana.

It was possible they saw me sneaking into the guest room, bringing Julia down the servants’ stairs to the reardoor of the house. It is possible they could make out our silhouettes as we stripped off our clothes and wadedinto the Bay. Maybe they watched her legs wrap around me, watched me lay her do............