"Easy Dad," Frank jumped up and pulled his dad away from his mother. Joe just sat still, absorbing his mother's confession.

"How could you?" he asked her again. "Didn't our vows mean anything to you?"

"Of course they did! They do. But I was so hurt. I wanted to hurt you back," she said, falling to her knees and crying.

"Hurt me back? What did I ever do to you that you would hate me so much as to whore yourself out?" Fenton demanded.

"Frank was only a couple of months old and Karen," Laura spat the name, "kept telling me about how nice and thoughtful you were to her. I hardly ever saw you, and me with your newborn son. Then she started calling while you were off duty, saying things like she thought she was to have met you on a stakeout or she wanted to thank me for being so understanding when you stayed at her house the night before. You had told me you were on a stakeout."

"Who is Karen?" Frank asked.

"She was my partner before Jeff," Fenton answered, his anger transferred to Karen as he thought about what she must have put Laura through. "She kept making passes at me even though she knew I was married. I finally had to put in for a new partner."

He knelt down in front of Laura. "Karen and I never, ever did anything," he said, lifting her chin to look in her troubled eyes. "I've always been faithful to you."

"I know," she whispered. "Jeff told me why you switched partners. I knew then, but at the time, it hurt so much. I wanted to hurt you back and I thought if I slept with Tim that you'd find out and you would know how I felt."

"Tim?" Joe asked.

"Tim Wheeler. He was a big-mouth jerk who couldn't keep a secret," Fenton said angrily. "But he never said a word to me about the two of you," he added, looking at Laura, a puzzling expression on his face.

"Karen wasn't my partner anymore. Why did you wait until Jeff and I were investigating the rapes to sleep with Tim?" he asked Laura.

"I didn't," she replied. "That's when I found out I was pregnant. You had been too busy for ages to be with me. It had to be Tim's. Joe wasn't born early, he was right on schedule."

"But your cycle?" Fenton started to ask.

"I've never been regular," she stated.

"Laura, Tim couldn't be Joe's father. He had a bad case of the mumps when he was little. He was sterile."

"But..but he has to be!" she wailed. "I swear, I never cheated except for that one time."

"So, Joe wasn't born on time," Fenton said, looking at his youngest son. "You were born about a month late. You really are my son," he said. "In every way."

"Well, of course he is," came a stern voice from the doorway. Fenton's maiden elder sister, Gertrude Hardy, walked in and set down her suitcase. "You probably don't remember great-uncle Roger," she said to Fenton. "He died when you were three, but Joe's the splitting image."

She started unbuttoning her coat. "Laura, your eyes are red. Are you coming down with a cold?" Then without pausing, she continued, "Frank take my suitcase upstairs. Joe, there's another one in the hall. Fenton go make us some tea. Laura, you come over here and sit down," she added, her voice leaving no room for argument.

"Looks like things are back to normal," Joe said to Frank as they lugged their aunt's suitcases up to the spare room.

"In this house?" Frank asked. "How can you tell?"