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Before I could answer, Patricia Ellsworth crossed the lobby toward us, pale blue silk moving around her knees, pearls at her ears, smile fixed and beautiful. She took both my hands in hers as if we were dear friends at a garden party and not two women standing at the edge of a family calamity wearing good shoes.

“Lorrie,” she said. “You look lovely.”

“Thank you, so do you.”

Behind her, Alan stood near the bar with a drink in his hand, speaking to my father’s cousin Robert as if nothing in the world had changed except perhaps the market, and only temporarily. Alan wore a dark suit and a faintly irritated expression.

His gaze moved to me, then Paul, then to my father. No one needed a private investigator to understand that look.

Dinner was in the smaller room off the main dining area, the one with the lake view and the heavy curtains that always smelled faintly of dust no matter how many women on the decorating committee complained. Round tables had been set with white linens, silver candlesticks, little bowls of butter curls, and enough forks to make a person feel like their etiquette lessons were being tested.

The flowers were white roses and lilies, Patricia’s choice winning over my mother’s objections, although Bitsy had clearly retaliated with the place cards. Hers had a sharper slant to the handwriting and looked more expensive.

My sister Meg was there with her husband, standing near the windows. My aunt June had worn purple taffeta. Paul’s grandparents sat near the center table, his grandmother wrapped in a pale shawl despite the heat, watching everyone with the bright-eyed interest of a woman who’d survived enough family dinners to know when something was up.

Dean stood over at the bar.

I stopped so abruptly that my mother bumped into me.

“Lorrie,” she whispered.

He’d come. I hadn’t been sure he would. I’d called Side A after Paul left the pool house, before I lost my nerve, and asked Dean to come by the club later. Not for the dinner. Not to sit through soup with people who would look at him as if he’d arrived with a guitar case and a communicable disease. Just to be nearby.

He wore his good jacket. Dark, a little narrow in the shoulders, with a white shirt and red tie beneath it, and jeans that were clean enough to make an effort, but not clean enough for my mother’s world. His dark hair fell over his forehead, and he shoved one hand in his pocket as he looked at me.

Before, I’d seen him across the room, standing near the edge of everything, too proud to come closer and too hurt to leave. I’d remembered that look for twenty-seven years. I’d built whole rooms inside myself around it.

Now he was here again, and this time I knew the man as well as the memory. His eyes met mine, but he didn’t walk towards me.

I was grateful, and furious, and loved him for it.

Paul noticed him. His face changed, but only slightly. He looked at Dean, then at me, and whatever he felt stayed locked behind his face. He would have made an excellent poker player.

The club manager appeared with the delighted anxiety of a man who had been warned this dinner mattered and hadn’t been told why.

“Mrs. Hale,” he said. “Mrs. Ellsworth. We’re ready whenever you are.”

My mother smiled at him. “Lovely.”

Patricia smiled too. “Thank you, Charles.”

They were both women who could have directed a military evacuation while discussing napkin folds.

We all made our way into the room. I sat between Paul and my father. Paul pulled out my chair. My father waited until I sat before sitting himself. At the end of the table, Alan watched this small act of courtesy, wondering if things had changed.

The first course was cream of asparagus.

I nearly laughed as my mother glanced at me. She knew exactly why and gave me a look that said if I laughed in public, she would haunt me forever.

The soup was pale green, perfectly smooth, and almost certainly the result of three phone calls. Around us, spoons lifted, conversation started, and everyone pretended we were having an ordinary dinner.

Aunt June asked Paul’s grandmother about her bridge group. Meg told Patricia the flowers were beautiful in a voice that suggested she’d been assigned the sentence. Someone at the next table mentioned the Olympics, which gave three men permission to discuss Mary Lou Retton with the seriousness of national infrastructure. My father’s cousin Robert laughed too loudly at something Alan said.

Paul ate two spoonfuls of soup and then pushed the bowl away.

I stared at my own bowl and wondered if, in the original version of this night, I’d been nervous or merely resigned. Had I known? Some part of me must have known.

My spoon slipped against the edge of the bowl with a small clink.