Danny had a huge scrape on his face, across his right eye, and down the side. He'd gotten out of his car seat while Jolie was driving, and opened the car door as she tried to pull over and stop. The scrapes were road rash, the bruises were significant, but not fatal.

Tracy picked him up at Casey's and was appalled. But he went and hid when he saw her, instead of running to her like he usually did. His eyes were black and blue, his hair had been cut short, a little boy cut she'd never seen on him. She felt nauseatingly apprehensive. Who had made these decisions? Why hadn't she been consulted? She was a phone call away. Coral and Kirk would have called her.

After finding out what happened, and packing his scant belongings to stay at the new house for the first time, Tracy had tried her best to be polite to Jolie, whose lank hair and sallow complexion was even lanker and sallower if that were possible.

As she stepped over the threshold carrying the screaming three-year-old, screaming for his Jolie and breaking her heart, she turned to say something.

"Jolie, I'm really sorry for what's going on with Casey, and you having to take care of Danny so much. If you want me to take him more while Casey's in--incarcerated, I can. I didn't have to go up to Austin's this weekend. And I'll be around the next four or five months pretty steady. I'm making a movie-- a real one. I've got my own place. It's not far from here." She eyed Jolie's swollen belly, just starting to look uncomfortable.

Jolie's face tried for a sneer that just looked pathetically like a grimace of condescension and hauteur. She leaned against the doorframe in her designer maternity clothes. "You'll probably get your wish and have him permanently."

She'd started walking down the path, not sure Jolie was going to reply, but that hadn't been the answer she'd been expecting. Jolie's track record with her had been distant and cold.

"Get him permanently?" She stopped, trying to hush the sobbing child, who didn't understand that going with his guardian or parent was part of his life, as they--- none of them lived in the same place. It was a disservice and confusing.

"Yeah." Her eyes rose to Tracy's, the sky lowering behind them over the bluffs, the view of the sea behind her.

"What?"

"Casey's got AIDS." Jolie blurted in defiant retaliation and angst.

Tracy blinked in incomprehension. "The gay disease? Excuse me?"

Jolie now wiped tears from her eyes. "I've got it too. They can't cure it."

Tracy walked back up the walk. "What are you talking about?"

"It's not just a gay disease. It is transferred through bodily fluids and people who use intravenous drugs and share needles can contract it too. We've known for a while." Her mouth had formed in a trembling slack-jawed oh, as she smeared more leakage. "As long as Casey's in jail, I don't want Danny here. It's too hard. He wears me out. You keep him."

"Jo-lie, you're kidding me, right? You don't have to take care of him ever. But don't say stuff like this----."

"I'm not just saying it, Tracy! You think I'd say shit like that? Just to say it? Shit! You really have a low opinion of me, Miss High and Mighty, Tracy McCaffrey, the shining girl he loves. God, I hate you." Jolie slammed the front door with a huge resounding latched noise. Expensive wood sounded like that. It rattled.

Tracy stood there.

"Danny, stop it! Stop crying. Momma's gotta talk to Auntie." She set Danny down and he threw himself on the rocks with a smack, as she marched back to that door and opened it without knocking.

"Bullshit! I call bullshit, Jolie. Show me the test results. Where's your doctor?"

Jolie had made it all the way through the artsy hallway, and was standing barefoot and emaciated except for her stomach, on the white tiles. No light illuminated her forlorn posture.

"I have the doctor's files. We are going to San Francisco next week as soon as Casey gets out. There's some experimental therapies they're trying. But it's pretty hopeless. Nobody has been cured from this. It's a plague. It's God's judgments against the freaking homos and the druggies."

Tracy braced herself against the stairwell with her right hand and waved her left, as she let out a short choked laugh. "It's not possible. You're so damn ---! How can you be--? This is stupid. How long have you known?"

"We found out at my doctor's appointment the day we went up to Park City and he tried to fight your boyfriend. All his dreams--- you killed all his dreams." She slid to the ground and hugged her knees. "You killed him."

"I did no such thing! I didn't kill him, his drugs----." She couldn't breathe. "His drugs killed him! I didn't take his dreams--- his own choices----." She ran out of air and slumped on the floor next to Jolie.

"Yeah, you did. You wouldn't get back together with the band, his biggest dream."

Tracy held her head to still the voices raging. "I'm solo. He didn't care about me at all, getting back together, till I started doing really well solo."

"He always loved you more."

"It's not true. He doesn't love me at all." But she felt doubt, real mind wrenching doubt as she said that. If he died now, she'd know he gave up because of her. Jolie's accusations shivered into her like a knife.

"And you broke off the engagement."

She turned tortured eyes on her nemesis. "Anyone would. It wasn't a real engagement. He planned it without me, as a means to keep me in his control. You should be glad, you want him! He's yours!"

"He loves you! He loves you! Not me!"

She wept bitterly as Danny made his way, silently now, holding his blankie up over his shoulder and sucking his thumb. Tracy turned, saw him and lifted him to her shoulders, the choking sobs dry heaving in her chest. Hysterical--- I'm getting hysterical.

"He chose you." She said slowly, knowing it was true, and knowing that it had initially hurt her for a moment--- a small moment, but the pain had gone quickly. She had so much more on her plate. Yes, Raine, yes new friends, new music, new avenues of creativity. This girl had nothing. A death sentence and a baby--

"Will the baby make it?"

"I don't know. Nobody knows. They only just found out that if a guy has it and he has sex with a woman, he can pass it on to her. Before they thought it was only the gays."

Tracy held her head as she bounced Danny. "It was only the gays. When did they find out about the druggies?"

"Hemophiliacs. Blood disease people who have to have transfusions.... And then there have been a few cases of actual shared needles, that's how Casey got it, sharing dirty needles-- shit-- sharing f-ing dirty needles--"

"But you? You got it by having sex with him! What about the baby, Jolie? Will you give it to the baby?"

"Nobody knows! It would be better if the baby dies. I'm going to die. Casey's going to die. Everybody who gets this dies." She choked on her own sobs and slid up the wall now, standing, staring at Tracy.

"Danny can't be here. Anymore-- at all. At all. He can't be here." Tracy whispered. "Don't come over. Could he have it already?"

Jolie shook, her whole body rocking with negation. "It is only transmitted through semen and blood. That's what they said. They are only guessing, though. They don't know enough about it. Blood and semen. But I'm going to die of pneumonia. That's what they said. My immune system will just shut down."

"You could transmit it then--- in delivery. Is that what they said? Blood.... and and... infected vaginal fluids. Probably." She twisted, thinking, frantically trying to make sense of Jolie-- of Casey-- of her own role. "I've got Danny."

"Three thousand people have died, Tracy. Three thousand. They don't know how many people actually have it. They think it started in Africa. They don't even know." She was babbling, and Tracy saw it.

"Do you--- do you have any friends who can come and stay with you? I'll call someone for you----." But she didn't even know if Jolie had anyone else. "What about family?"

Jolie was rocking and shaking. "He doesn't want you to know. He doesn't want you to know. He's going to be pissed at me."

"Look, we were together long before this happened, and we are still--- still like best friends. His best friends deserve to know, Jolie, you did the right thing telling me." She hefted Danny higher, feeling the agonizingly limp weight in her back. He held his blankets and his toys, not her. "Call somebody to come and be with you the next few days till Casey gets out, okay?"

She felt callous just leaving her there, but she had to get to a phone. She had to talk to someone who knew what this was all about and could confirm or deny it. Her insides were roiling and she was afraid Plum Flower wasn't going to cut it. Where the heck was Richard?

*****