Proserpina Delano sat at her desk, going through her mail mechanically. It was a task she did every morning, and even though she was due back in the hospital in the afternoon, she had known that the normalcy of reading mail would help to settle her greatly.

Her young sons, Alexander and Gabrielle, were home and she could hear them from her room, shouting as they played a game they had devised, called, appropriately, ‘Mafia-Mafia.’

Ria’s little daughter and Tara’s twins, ...