“What’s the matter with Josefina?” Frank broke in. “Immigration finally catch up with her?”

Nicole took a deep breath and counted to five – counting to ten, right then, was beyond her. When she could trust her voice, she said “No” and explained in words of one syllable, with a minimum of sarcasm, about Josefina’s mother. “I know it’s impossibly short notice” – for that, she could apologize; her pride wasn’t so sticky – ”but she didn’t give me any warning at all, just hit me with it when I dropped the children off this morning. I’ll find somebody else as fast as I can. I’m sure it won’t be past this weekend. By that time I’ll – ”

Frank interrupted again: “I can’t.” She’d always had a knack for knowing when he was lying – except, of course, about Dawn, but that wasn’t the issue now. She was sure, down in her bones, that he was telling the truth. “It is impossibly short notice,” he said. “I’ve got way too much stuff going on to take ‘em now. I’m sorry, Nicole. I wish I could.”

He was telling the truth about that, too. She could feel it much too clearly for comfort. Dammit.

“Please, Frank,” she said – never mind if she had to get down on her knees and beg, this was critical. “Have I ever asked you for anything like this before?”

“No, you haven’t,” he admitted, but there wasn’t any give in his voice. “It doesn’t matter. I can’t do it.”

Nicole rolled all her frustrated fury into a bullet – rage at Josefina, rage at Sheldon Rosenthal, years’ worth of rage at Frank – and sighted it dead center on her ex-husband. “Why not? They’re your children, too, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“I can’t take them tomorrow,” Frank said again. He not only snorted like a mule, he could dig in his heels like one. He wasn’t budging now.