A perky waitress came and took their orders. When she'd gone, Shelley said hesitantly, picking her words with care, "I'm a little surprised at the change in Sarah. I remember her in high school as very outgoing, bubbly—"

“—and I was the shy, nerdy one," Grace said.

“Not nerdy, but shy — yes. It's like you've changed roles. What happened?"

“With me, it's simple and not very interesting. I married a jerk and finally got up the courage to divorce him. I'd taken all those bookkeeping classes in school and found out that I was pretty good at numbers and could earn my own living. Once I'd done that, it was like a great revelation that I could control my life! Funny how some of us have to be slapped upside the head with something traumatic to understand that, while others—"

“Like Sarah—" Shelley prompted.

Grace nodded. "Of course, Sarah's trauma was so much worse than mine."

“I don't mean to pry," Shelley said, "but Ihave no idea what you mean by that."

“You don't know? Really?" Grace asked. "I'd have thought the old school grapevine reached everybody.”

Shelley shook her head.

“You haven't heard about the baby?"

“I heard they lost a child, but I didn't know if it was a miscarriage or what and I wasn't sure it was true.”

The waitress brought their salads and Grace picked at hers. "They had a child with severe brain damage. Extremely severe. Unable to survive without a hideous array of machines. Constant convulsions. It was unbelievably awful. Sarah had been trying to get pregnant for years, desperately wanted the child, had a devastating delivery that made it impossible for her to have more children. In spite of that, and because she believed the child was suffering horribly, Sarah wanted the life support removed. The hospital agreed. Unofficially, of course. But they couldn't allow it without a court order. Sarah never left the baby's side. The hospital had to put a guard on her to make certain they couldn't be accused of having benignly ignored the possibility that she might turn off the machines. So she never even had any private moments with the baby."