There is, she's always thought, a tacit understanding between them that their professional boundaries are a necessary fiction. She's always had a sense-- at least, a suspicion-- that if things were different, they might be different as well. And with that theory proven, it feels plainly silly to stand on ceremony.

I'm the mother of your children, she doesn't say, but she certainly thinks it.

"Come on," she says, sympathetic but a little less gentle. "I'll sleep better if I don't have to worry about it."