Vicky adds, She liked your mom. Vicky has the kind of expectant look that always fills your father with energy. You shift from foot to foot; the books in your arms crash into your ribcage.

Good, you say finally, that's good. You glance at Nate, but he maintains his usual discreet distance. Eleanor, your mother would say, the Secret Service is not authorized to protect you from social embarrassment.

She was with this student group, Vicky says. They got stuck there for a few hours, some kind of security alarm.

Oh, you say. Yeah. They're pretty common, really.

You must get so worried, Vicky says, as if it's only just occurred to her for the first time. You stare at her incredulously, and this time she's the one who drops her eyes.

*

You were already on a Prozac-Celexa mix, but in September your psychiatrist added Klonopin for the panic attacks. Prozac, Celexa, Klonopin; fluoxetine hydrocholoride, citalopram hydrobromide, clonazapam. The best thing about the clonazapam is that it doesn't need to build up in your bloodstream; calm wraps around you like cotton in fifteen minutes flat. You've been taking one a day. On the really bad days, you take two.

You mention it to your godmother during one of your weekly meetings. She comes to Johns Hopkins three times a week to teach a lecture course, and after her Thursday office hours the two of you meet at Vigo's and sit at a table in the back and wrap your hands around warm mugs of green tea.

Does your mother know? Millie asks.

You can't look at her. Finally you mumble, She'd tell my dad.

Your godmother's voice is very, very gentle. You could tell him yourself.

You don't know what to say to that. You shake your head, no, no, no.

Okay, she says, and you flinch from the disappointment in her voice. Ellie, okay.

*

Christmas Eve, 1988: Zoey is tickling Annie under the tree. The baby rolls from side to side, giggling and grabbing at her aunt's fingers. Zoey is wearing the red tennis shoes she got three weeks ago. She loves them. Dad's already yelled at her twice today to make her take them off and put on boots before she goes out into the snow.

You're lying flat on your stomach, pretending to read Emily Dickinson. Your mother and your godmother and your older sister are seated round the living room table, talking, talking; their wine-eased voices lap over you like warm bathwater, soaking into your muscles, relaxing you to a happy drowse. They're talking about peace. You're not sure why it's good that the government is talking to the PLO, whom your parents called terrorists in somber tones two months ago, but everyone seems pleased.

Abbey, really, your godmother says.

No, Millie, listen, it may not be history, but it's the story everyone in the Middle East knows. You can ask Israelis on the street who Hagar is, and Palestinians who Sarah is, and they sound as bitter as Mrs. Cassidy in the store talking about her family's farm being sold off.

Mom—

Don't you "Mom" me, Elizabeth Anne Bartlet Groves. There's no fight as bad as a family fight, and that's what it is, a fight between the sons of Abraham, the sons of Isaac against the sons of Ishmael.

What about their daughters? Liz asks pertly.

Zoey interrupts before your mother can answer. Abraham didn't have any daughters.

Zoey's such a show-off. You bend your head closer to your book.

How would we know? Liz says. It's not like anyone would have bothered to write it down.

Your godmother laughs. Well, Abbey, you certainly raised 'em up right.

*

You can't remember when or how you learned that your father had wanted a son. Maybe no one ever said it aloud; maybe you just knew. You knew he loved you, you and Elizabeth and Zoey, but he'd still wanted at least one son. And you'd always felt it was your fault somehow. It's not that you ever wanted to be a boy; it's just that you'd always felt like the one he could stand to sacrifice.

You knew he loved you. But you also knew he didn't like you much.

*

Sometimes your mother comes up to Baltimore to visit you. Your father doesn't, but he's busy. He can see Zoey so often because she's in D.C., and it's not as if he goes to New York just to see Elizabeth. It's always business, you know that. It's not his fault there isn't much presidential business in Baltimore.

You never go to see your parents at the White House. As long as you don't see them, they're safe. Unchanging. As untouchable as figures in a snowglobe, round-faced and red-cheeked and shining with health, standing upright with their arms around each other's waists, smiling at you and waving good-bye as the snowflakes fall into their hair. You don't mind that the crystal keeps you from touching them as long as it keeps them safe.

*

Your father looked so fragile in that hospital bed in September. IV threaded into one limp hand, dried blood crusted along the edges of the abdominal bandage, the bags beneath his eyes bruised and puffy. A fierce tenderness seized you. How could anyone want to hurt him? How could anyone bear it?

*

Your parents wanted you to go to Johns Hopkins, but you wanted to go to UCLA. Poorer hospital, urban center: hands-on experience for students. When you visited, the Admissions Office gave you a slim booklet of Spanish for doctors that a med student had put together a couple of years ago.

Your parents wanted you to go to Johns Hopkins.

Robert went to UCLA. The two of you gave it a month and agreed that it wasn't working out. You were friends first and you still are. There'd been a message from him on your machine when you got back from the hospital, and he called you every night for three weeks and finally flew out to see you in October because, he said, he could tell you could use a friend. When you slept with him, you tried to pretend that it felt furtive and dirty and that you didn't come because you knew about his new girlfriend, but the whole time you knew it was really because you were so scared.

He still called you after he went back to LA, but you never called him back. He still calls. He's dropped off to once a week now, but he still calls.

We're friends, he says to your answering machine. Ellie, I know it was a mistake, and I'm not to trying to start up anything, I swear I'm not. It's just that I'm your friend and I'm worried about you. Ellie? Ellie, please call me back.

*

Home for Thanksgiving, your first year of college, wrapped in extra layers because you'd gotten used to California weather, and talking to your godmother about hospital volunteer work over breakfast.

He was ten, you say. Maybe eleven, but not any older than that. And Dr. Mani told his father, and then his father turned to look at him, and he knew, Millie, you could tell the kid knew. He started screaming that he wanted his mother, he wanted to see her now, and he started hitting at his father, and his father just picked him up and hugged him and said "Shhh." Shhhh. And the kid shut up but he didn't cry, not while I was watching. He didn't cry. He just looked like the sky had fallen in.

*

I keep waiting for the sky to fall in, you told Robert the night before he told you he was flying out. You could call him now. You could. You could pick up the phone.

I keep waiting for the sky to fall in.

That old thing? Didn't you notice? It's been coming down for years.