She wondered if Bert had ever really loved anyone. He'd had little use for women in general, and none at all for an overweight, clumsy little girl who didn't have a high opinion of herself to begin with. For as long as she could remember, he had told her she was useless, and she now suspected that he might have been right.

At the age of thirty-three, she was unemployed and nearly broke. Arturo had died seven years ago. She had spent the first two years after his death administering the touring exhibits of his paintings, but after the collection went on permanent display in Paris's Musée d'Orsay, she'd moved to Manhattan. The money Arturo had left her when he'd died had gradually disappeared, helping to pay the medical expenses of many of her friends who had died from AIDS. She didn't regret a penny. For years she'd worked in a small, but exclusive, West Side gallery that specialized in the avantgarde. Just last week, her elderly employer had closed the doors for the last time, leaving her at loose ends while she looked for a new direction in her life.

The thought flickered through her mind that she was getting tired of being outrageous, but she was feeling too fragile to cope with introspection, so she finished making her way to her sister's bedroom and knocked on the door. "Molly, it's Phoebe. May I come in?"

There was no answer.

"Molly, may I come in?"

More seconds ticked by before Phoebe heard a muted, sullen, "I guess."

She mentally braced herself as she turned the knob and stepped inside the bedroom that had been hers as a child. During the few weeks each year when she had lived here, the room had been cluttered with books, food scraps, and tapes of her favorite music. Now it was as pin-neat as its occupant.