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While Stannie slept off his Friday-morning hangover in Florida, Rose woke up before dawn in a bedroom at the Westford farmhouse. It had been a child's room once, whether long ago or recently, she couldn't tell. A nightlight shaped like a bear glowed near the door; a stuffed rabbit sprawled on a rocking chair by the window.

Rose got out of bed and looked into the navy sky over the treetops. You could actually see a few stars out here in the country. She'd spent too much time in Washington lately and too little on the road. She hadn't planned to stay more than the afternoon at Sibyl's, hadn't even brought a toothbrush. Then, Jim Westford mentioned at yesterday's reception that most of the real League business would happen the next morning, after a prayer service in the chapel.

"Oh, that's too bad," she said, looking at him over the rim of a plastic punch glass. She'd just found out that he specialized in medical malpractice. "I'm going back to Washington tonight."

"Well, don't go if you don't want to. Sibyl wouldn't mind one more for the night—would she, Jenny?"

Jenny Lemke came over, smiling vaguely. "Huh?"

"Sibyl could find Rose here a room tonight, couldn't she? Rose needs to come to our meeting tomorrow."

"Sibyl would do anything you told her to."

So Rose agreed to stay, though she was pretty sure Jim had to twist his sister's arm over it—maybe other arms, too. At the picnic supper in the evening, she felt people looking at her more suspiciously than earlier in the day. The priest and the hippies and the others all smiled but kept the conversation shallow, even when she set up a lawn chair near the priest and said, "Hope you don't mind me plunking down here—I'm a friend of Jenny's."

"Jenny's a very fine person," he said, "but I don't know anything about her private life." He sank down in his chair with his head near his plate. His long face looked like it might slide right into the potato salad. Rose almost laughed out loud.

After eating just half a hot dog and none of her sauerkraut she got up and folded her chair against an oak tree nearby, then started across the broad lawn toward some women with children. She hoped they'd be more talkative, but as she came closer, the women pulled their children away and spread out slowly in a wide semi-circle over the light green grass. In fact, the nearer she got to them, the further out the semi-circle moved. She felt like the wrong side of a magnet, pushing these people away. (Or was she just imagining that they moved away from her? Maybe she was hanging back, herself—you could fool yourself that way; like taking your foot off the brake at a red light and thinking other cars were creeping backward.)

She went back and found an empty table set up under a tent that had "Parker's Funeral Home" emblazoned on each side. This seemed like a good place to roost, alone: she slid onto a bench and took a few pictures of the children with her telephoto lens, then looked around and studied the faces closer to her. There were plenty of people whose types she didn't recognize—women with long dresses and bows in their hair, a man in knickers, a teenage girl wearing a sari. Almost everyone was a little—how could you say it?— off, but nobody looked like a terrorist. Suddenly she realized she hadn't seen Jenny in a while; she scanned the crowd, but couldn't pick her out anywhere. It was starting to get dark. She put the lens cap back on her camera and went inside to examine Sibyl's house, unchaperoned.

She was standing in a long, carpeted hallway, squinting at old family photographs of the Westfords, when someone walked up quietly behind her. "Recognize me in any of those?"

She turned, startled, and found herself facing Jim Westford. He was tall like his sister, with the same earnest expression. She had decided by now that she found him more interesting-looking than handsome: pale but dark-haired, with bright blue eyes and a high, straight nose that gave him a brainy look.

"Big family," she said. "Which of these kids is you?"

He smiled and pointed to a black-and-white photo of a small boy with a cocker spaniel. "I'm number six, the youngest. But I came long after everybody else, so I get my own picture. How come you're not outside with the folks?"

"Nobody seems to want to talk to me. I think they've been warned off."

"They probably have. We don't trust anyone we haven't known for years."

"Me neither."

He looked at her for a moment, cocking his head to the side, clearly considering something. "Want to come in my office, drink a cup of tea or coffee or something? Actually, I have a very nice bottle of wine I've been saving for a special occasion. If you don't object."

"No, I'd love a drink."

They went to a small library in a corner of the house and she sat down across from him at a heavy wooden table. The sky had deepened to grey outside: the shadows in the room were heavy. There were already candles burning. He switched on a dim lamp. While he opened and poured the wine, she scanned the bookshelves that circled the room and climbed all the way to the high ceiling. The volumes on the shelf behind her chair were all law and theology. Even the spines looked dull.

"I bet you haven't really read any of these," she said. "You just keep them around to intimidate people."

"That's exactly right."

"Your gang of dead white males."

He laughed. "That's what they are. They back me up when I'm in trouble."

"In your line of work, you must stay in trouble."

"Unfortunately, yes."

He had a way of putting you at ease—exactly what Stannie didn't have: he didn't mind not talking at all. She finished her first glass of wine and held her second glass up to the candle burning beside her. The light seemed to glow from inside: thin red shadows waved across her palm. She felt sleepy, and also guilty for relaxing when she was supposed to be thinking of weasely questions to ask Jim Westford about the FRL. She knew he probably had terrible politics, but at the moment she didn't care.

"So what do you think?" he asked, as if reading her thoughts.

"About what?"

"About us. The League."

"I think I'm being lazy and getting slightly tipsy. At least let me get out my camera and take your picture."

"I wouldn't stop you."

She took a photograph of him sitting in front of his books with his arms crossed, sipping his wine. It was quiet in his office: she heard a clock ticking in the hall, a whippoorwill calling outside.

"So why in the world do you want a picture of me?"

"Oh, don't underestimate yourself. I've never heard of a lawyer-pastor, before. I like contradictions."

"I get tired of them."

"You probably see more of them than I do."

"What's this book about, anyway? Sibyl thinks you're a spy from NARAL."

Rose laughed warmly, and held up the camera again. "No, I'm just a friendly researcher. I want to show people who you guys really are and what you do. Not just what you do politically. The day-to-day stuff."

"Well, you know what I do. I'm a lawyer most of the time and I preach to a very small congregation on Sundays, and you think that's a contradiction."

"It is."

"I don't think so."

"Are you a fundamentalist?"

"What does that mean?"

"Do you take the Bible literally?"

He smiled. "Do you really want to discuss theology?"

"What kind of cases do you take? You said malpractice, but I can't imagine you going around suing doctors. You don't seem like the type."

He squinted. "The type that's in it for money?"

"You're too honest. It's obvious."

"Everybody has to make a living."

"Come on. You people are idealists around here."

He nodded. "Yes, we are."

"So tell me what you do."

"I think you'll get a better sense of all that tomorrow."

"When? At the meeting?"

"Yes."

"Is your work primarily related to abortion?"

"Sort of."

"Can't you be more specific? I told you I'm not a spy."

He cleared his throat. "Why don't you get up and take an early hike with me, before the meeting?"

She hesitated.

"What's the matter? "Are you a late sleeper?"

"No. A walk would be nice."

"Good. Really early. Five-thirty."

"Whoa!"

"You are a late sleeper, then. I was testing you."

She smiled. "I'm just a sane human being.

* * *

Now, standing in her t-shirt and underwear in this child's room, she was sorry she'd agreed. She felt groggy and slightly sick. She took a quick shower in the adjoining bathroom and then put back on her clothes from yesterday. There were clowns and alligators in the bathroom wallpaper, floating together in tiny toy boats. Another odd combination. She imagined the alligators tearing off white fingers, big shoes, round noses.

She went downstairs and stood by herself on the front porch until Jim appeared from the chapel next door in khaki pants and hiking boots. He had slept over in the chapel, he said, because it wasn't worth driving an hour back to his own house.

"I assumed you lived with your sister."

"No." He laughed quietly, and she wondered why.

"Where do you live, then?"

"I have a house in Washington, and I come up here on the weekends. But my home—I hate to say it, but it's probably in a suitcase."

"I know what you mean!"

The sky had lightened, but it was still dim. They left through the backyard, crossing a thin patch of woods to a dirt road that went on and on through unplowed pasture. The air smelled thick and wet. They passed an old barn and a row of apple trees, just in bloom. Rose reached up to touch a flower and it fell away, spiraling to the ground like a tiny pink bird. Horses grazed on either side of them. She could hear them snorting and chewing in the early quiet.

"Does your family own this land?"

Jim nodded. "Sibyl's in charge of everything. It used to be a dairy; now she just boards horses for a riding school, and gives lessons."

"Does she make a profit?"

"Not much of one. And it's a lot of work, even for her."

"Why 'even for her?' "

"She has more energy than I do. Hang around, you'll find out."

"I guess I've already seen it. She looks old-fashioned but she's pretty fierce. More of a true believer than Jenny, isn't she?"

He squinted. "Less of a diplomat, obviously. I don't know. I'd rather not try to analyze Sibyl. We're all very different, but we agree on the main things."

The road was weedy and cracked down the middle, with water puddled in the low places. Rose tried to step on the grassy spots and avoid the puddles, but her shoes got wet and gathered mud as she walked. She felt like a Clydesdale trudging along. At the bottom of a hill, they sloshed into a wide, shallow swamp. Bright blades of grass prickled up from the brown water. Their feet made sucking noises with each step. She looked over at him and laughed suddenly.

"What?" he asked.

"Nothing. I could just … I don't know you at all. I can't tell what you're thinking right now."

"You really can't?"

"I have no idea."

"I'm thinking we ought to start growing rice on this farm. I'm so sorry. I had no idea it would be this wet."

"Well, I'm not thinking about that," she said.

"What are you thinking about?"

"I'm thinking about what I was asking you last night."

"About what I do."

"Yes."

He looked over at her, half-frowning. "All right. Have you ever heard of abortion survivors?"

"Women who've had complications?"

"No. Not women. I represent children that survive botched abortions. There aren't many around obviously, since the whole point is to kill them."

She waited, not sure what to say. She felt herself stiffen inside.

He went on. "You might have seen one of the talk shows recently with an eight-year-old girl from Maine—"

"I don't watch TV."

"Her mother was pregnant with twins. She had a saline abortion in the seventh month, but the younger one was born alive." Rose sighed. "I represented the family," he said, "but they settled out of court. I have two other clients who are suing clinics and chances are they'll settle, too. But when the right case comes along, it could be big. In fact, we may have it now. I have an adult woman who's willing to take this all the way. She doesn't care about money."

"Do you expect her to win?"

"I expect her to get a lot of public sympathy." She felt him smiling at her, but she didn't look up. "We have a chance," he said. "The argument is a lot more convincing when you have a real person there who nearly died because there was no law to protect her."

"So that means—" She hesitated. "Who are you suing? The government?"

"Yes."

"On what basis?"

"Can't tell you that. But you might talk to my client. She's a nun."

"You're kidding."

"She's a junior sister, but I told her to take orders in a hurry. She works in a school for handicapped children."

Rose imagined herself in a chilly room with a nun and a tape recorder, her fingers curled up in a microphone cord. She didn't really want to meet the woman, but the story demanded it.

"Where would I have to go?"

"Pensacola, Florida."

She frowned, thinking about Stannie. "I have to warn you, I can't promise what I'd think or write. I want to be objective."

"Oh, I hope you will be objective. And then I hope you'll decide that a crime has been committed. I'd feel a little better about my ability to convince a jury."

She hesitated. "Let me ask you something, though. Suppose you win this case, or another. Surely you wouldn't feel better as a minister … that is, if abortion did eventually become criminal, and someday you had to perform a funeral for a girl who died after a really bad illegal abortion?"

"I hope that never happens."

"But women will die, if you people ever get things your way. They used to die all the time."

He winced. "Yeah."

"So you're willing to live with that?"

"It's the hardest question to answer. As a lawyer I can argue the pro-life position pretty coldly, but I'd rather answer you as a Christian."

"I'm asking the Christian, not the lawyer."

He nodded slowly. She tapped his arm. "I'll let you off the hook for now," she said. "You think about it and get back to me."

"Thank you. And I will."

They walked on silently for the next half-mile. She felt tired out again, mentally. What was it about being at this place, thinking about these things? She found herself wishing that she and Jim Westford could sit in his office the way they had the evening before, just sipping wine. He seemed more like a stranger this morning: a study in contrasts, very wrong on some things and very right on others. He was fine to know casually, but she wondered whether she could really be close to a man like that.

They circled around and walked back over a long, yellow-green field, up hill and down hill. The ground was drier here. The air had already turned a little warmer; it was sweet with the smell of spring grass and horse manure. The sun rose waist-high and glimmered through the trees.

Suddenly he asked, "Do you see somebody, Rose?"

She looked up. "Where?"

"No, I mean do you have a boyfriend?"

"Yes!" She laughed. "I thought you meant—"

"Just a pastorly question. Are you serious about him?"

"I used to live with him. A few years ago. And then I found what a jerk he could be and I moved out."

"But you still see him?"

"Yes. And it works for the most part, you know? As long as there's a distance."

"He doesn't sound good for you."

Rose smiled. "Nobody's good for anybody."

"Do you love him?"

"I don't know. It's a very convenient relationship. Hard to imagine giving him up completely."

"You know, speaking of the sanctity of life, if that's what we were speaking about a few minutes ago, I don't think you value your own life enough. Maybe you should try being alone for a while."

"Maybe so." They had just passed through the woods and into Sibyl's backyard.

"Rose," Jim said quietly, "there's something I want to show you, or more I can tell you, later this morning. It has to be off the record. Not for the book. Just for yourself."

"Sure. What is it?"

He started to answer but then looked up because Jenny Lemke had just opened the back door of the house and waved at them.

"Jim!" she called.

"Yes?"

She had a phone in her hand. "There's a call from Florida. It's an emergency."

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