"My father wanted a boy," George answered, as though it were that simple. Want did not adequately encompass it; even need somehow paled.

Her parents, George had gleaned piece by piece over the years, had so struggled to produce a healthy child that her father had been unwilling to bow to nature's whims. Alexander's birth might have been a second blessing to their parents, but to George, it seemed one of life's meaner ironies. George had dutifully played her role for so long, even after she knew the truth—but she knew it could not make her happy, just as she knew she was in too deep to escape it now.

"He didn't think that my mother would give him another child. In fact," George added, more to herself than to Thomas—and certainly not looking her friend in the eye, "I don't think he much expected me to last. I can't say whether or not he gave much thought as to what would happen in the future."