It felt like 7.5 on the Richter scale, but I guess it was just my knees. The house was still standing still and the leaves on our old tree barely stirred.

My trembling hands wouldn’t work the house key – I may as well have been using a fork – then I discovered that the front door was already unlocked. I saw Jae pause by his car, making sure I could get in. Well, he’d have plenty to tell Jessica now. She’d be rushing into his arms just as he planned – just as we planned. The idea made me sad.

I pushed open the door.

“Hope I cut the lights at the right time,” Bom said.

She was sitting at the top of the stairs in her pajama.

I the hall lamp. “Perfect.” My voice was flat. I had gone from quaking to completely numb inside. I climbed the steps slowly.

“You okay?” Bom asked.

“Sure.”

Stepping around her, I headed for the bathroom before she asked too many questions. I washed my face with the medicine-cabinet door open so I wouldn’t have to watch the perfect make-up job turn back into an ordinary-looking face. All I wanted to do was climb into bed and pull the sheets over my head and sleep. But when I walked into our bedroom, I saw a pan of brownies and glass of water waiting for me on the table between our beds.

“I can’t do any more stairs today, so if you want milk, you’ll have to get it yourself,” Bom said from her canyon of pillows.

I really wasn’t hungry, but she had gone to some trouble to make the brownies for me. Just one square was missing from the pan, which meant she had even fended off my father.

“They look great,” I said, trying to sound enthusiastic as I cut into them.

“Dee, I’m sorry it didn’t work out tonight the way you wanted it to.”

I shrugged. “I knew t would end up like this. I knew what I was getting myself into, but I owed him.” I poked the knife at some crumbs. “Though it wasn’t just that,” I said quietly. “I know this sounds crazy, but I really do want Jae to be happy – even if being happy means being with Jessica. So I helped him along. Crazy, huh?”

“Craziness runs in the family,” Bom said, throwing one leg over the side of the bed. “But listen, you may be surprised. I wish it was Jae who’d surprise you – but if he doesn’t, somebody else will. It’s true,” she said, swinging her foot.

“Dee, if there is one thing I’ve learned in the last couple of weeks, it’s that the people are full of surprises. They have little ways of being there for you, of making you smile when you’ve decided you won’t even again. And that gets you through,” she said, glancing up at the shelf that held Top’s panda bears and kids’ cards.

I chewed thoughtfully.

“Other people will get you through,” she repeated. “Trust me on that.”

I wasn’t going to commit myself. “Aren’t you having any brownies?”

“Already did. Dad and I split that square.”

“Yeah, but you’re eating for two, Bommie. You’ve got to get serious about this if corn-muncher is going to be born a chocoholic and corn-addict – which I’m counting on. I’m planning to buy humungous chocolate bunnies and cans of corns, which corn-muncher will gratefully share with Aunt Dee. And when corn-muncher can walk, we’re dressing up and going trick-or-treating together, a shopping bag in each of corn-muncher’s hands. Then at Christmas, well, let’s just say I have big plans for chocolate bonding with this kid.”

Bom laughed and cut as each a brownie. We ate in silence, but it was a comfortable one, and she was still smiling a little. Then we turned off the light.

The ache wasn’t gone. When I closed my eyes I imagined Jessica lounging by the pool talking to Jae on her pink cordless phone, while he hurried around his room, packing his board shorts and towel. If anything, the pain had rooted deeper.

But the little surprises were there too. The brownies. Bommie smiling.

Tomorrow I’d find ways of keeping busy – maybe I’d paint the old bureau that was going to be corn-muncher’s. And come Monday, there’d be a bus full of noisy kids who’d be full of surprises. That would get me through.

**

Bom was reclined in a shady lounge chair about 10 feet away from where I was working my magic for corn-muncher’s bureau in the backyard. Lying in her lap was her old book I had slipped into her rack of magazines. She was just thumbing through it, looking at the pictures, but it was a start.

Strange as it sounds, I was glad for Bom’s company as I sanded away my frustrations. The Sunday afternoon sun burned a hot yellow circle around our tree. I stood back now, wiping the perspiration from my brow, admiring the ultra-smooth surface of the bureau’s top and sides.

“Hi, Jessica,” Bom said without smiling.

I turned around. This was not the kind of surprise I had hoped for.

She looked so pretty. How come she always looked pretty? How come I never caught her in a sweaty shirt and uneven cut-offs, wearing a messy hair, with dust all over her?

“Jess, what’s up?” I asked, wondering if she noticed the false cheerfulness in my voice. “I haven’t seen you for a while.”

“You haven’t called me for a while,” she replied. I heard the hurt in her voice – real or unreal. I wasn’t sure anymore.

“Grab a chair from the porch,” I told her.

While she went on to get one, Bom asked quietly. “Want me to leave you two alone?”

“No.” It came out sounding angry. Actually, I was panicked. I wanted my older sister’s sarcasm around as a kind of shield. I need her with me.

“What’ the bureau for?” Jessica asked, pulling her chair up halfway between me and Bom.

“The baby. I’m going to pain it yellow, and do some trim later on when we find out whether corn-muncher’s a b