“Tell me where this piece of human garbage lives," he said.

“And I will teach him the proper way to treat women.”

She smiled at him and shook her head, laying one hand on his arm. "No.

It is done now. He is gone and I have no need to ever see him again.

And by the grace of Allah, there was never a child. It would have given our parents the perfect excuse to try to keep us together.”

Josh drove on, his face thoughtful.

“So, you've never found happiness with men. And women..."

“I've never been with one."

"Ah." He was quiet for a Long time. "No wonder you're terrified around us. Rachel and Maria and Althea offer what you want, but have been afraid to reach for. And Jeremy and Alex and I are what you have been taught to fear."

Yasna blinked slowly. The man's insight is unholy. Not even her therapist had ever been able to set forth her problems so simply.

“We're not all like that, you know," he said at last. "Men, I mean."

She smiled at him. "I know."

"I'm not trying to hit on you, by the way," he added hurriedly. "If you spend enough time around us, you'll find out that we have a pretty open set of relationships. Although how it happened is still a bit of a blur. But no one, no one," he emphasized, “will push you to do anything you don't want to do. If anyone does, tell me, and I'll have them out of the house so fast they won't hit the ground. Even if it's my own son."

“Or daughter?"

“I don't think you have to worry about Sarah," he said wryly.

“The next time she Looks at a woman as a potential partner it will be the first."

"Pity," Yasna said, her voice wistful. "She's very attractive."

"Yes," Josh said, pulling into the hospital parking Lot, the scene of last night's terror.

“She is. We're lovers.”

Yasna stared at him, disbelieving.

“Like I said," he told her. "An open set of relationships."

"So how are you and my brother getting along?" Sarah asked as she pulled away from Jeremy's house. The visit there had been blessedly uneventful. Both parents were at work. Jeremy had left his father a voice mail with a cock-and-bull story about being invited on a camping trip as Sarah helped him fill a suitcase and a duffel bag with what he needed for several days away from home.

“Won't your dad be pissed that you're blowing off work?" Sarah had asked. Reggie Edwards ran a landscaping business.

“A little," Jeremy had replied. "But I told him last week I didn't intend to put in as many hours this summer. I wanted to enjoy my last summer vacation. He'll deal with it."

“We're getting along very well," Maria now replied to Sarah's inquiry.