"An unbroken line of unrelated people."

Annie began to enjoy herself. She described the nostalgia her mother and sister had expressed for the local lunatic asylum.

"And my sister almost drowned in a kayak and was rescued by a young actor," she continued. They proceeded to discuss kayaks and boats in general for a while, the conversation then veering inexplicably to a shared appreciation for the actor James Mason, whom they both occasionally confused with Dirk Bogarde.

"I was once thinking about that scene, that wonderful, ghastly scene in Death in Venice in which Gustav von Aschenbach's makeup begins to run," Frederick said. "Then, days later, I realized that the entire time I had been picturing the makeup running down James Mason's face."

From across the room came a shout: "Dad!"

It was Frederick's son-in-law. Annie felt a stab of pity for Frederick: his son-in-law called him "Dad."

I often think about Gustav von Aschenbach when I put on my own makeup, she thought, though she might have said it aloud, for Frederick stared at her.

"Dad! There you are," said Frederick's daughter, arriving beside them with her husband and little girls. "Oh, hello," Gwen added hastily to Annie. "You're the librarian, aren't you? Ann, is it? How nice to see you here of all places." Gwen was holding one daughter who chewed dreamily on a cracker.

"Of all places," Annie repeated.

"This is Ron, my son-in-law, and this small person," Frederick said, reaching for the child, "is Ophelia."

Annie shook Ophelia's sticky hand. "Pretty dress," she said.

"Hot," said Ophelia.

Betty was watching the little group with interest. She was happy that Frederick had come to see Annie. Had Annie invited him? It was not like Annie to go out of her way in quite such a public manner, to show her hand. She must really like the novelist with the sparkly eyes and mellifluous voice. If my children can be happy, I will be happy, Betty thought, squaring her shoulders, though what she felt was the same simmering anger and confusion as always.

"I heard about Joseph," a man next to her said.

She tried to recover herself and remember who he was, gazing with fascinated revulsion at his meaty lips while the general conversation of the people standing around her washed over them.

"Marty," Betty said, finally remembering the man with the liver-colored lips was Cousin Lou's accountant. "Hello."

"I'm so sorry about what happened," he said.

He was eating a piece of dark orange cheese. She noticed it left a narrow oily trail on his lip, like a snail.

"You need a good lawyer, Betty. A shark. I'll give you a name."

"Talk to Annie, Marty dear. I'm in mourning."

"Yeah. They say that's one of the stages, right?"

"I don't believe in stages," Betty said.

"It's not a religion, Mom," her younger daughter said, coming up beside Betty. And because Marty looked a little hurt and her voice had accidentally emerged with a far too haughty timbre, Betty forced herself to smile at Marty and his odious snail-slimed lip.

"Thank you," she said, taking his hand, administering a short shake and releasing it, as if she were in a receiving line. "Thank you for your kind words."

"Shark," he said, repeating the kind word as he went away.

"Dear God," Betty said.

"Who was that?" Miranda asked.

Roberts was a step or two behind her.

"Lou's accountant. He said I needed a shark divorce lawyer."

"A forensic accountant is more like it," Roberts said. "I'm sorry," he added when Betty did not reply. "None of my business." And he hurried off.

Forensic accountant. As a recently converted and loyal member of the daytime television audience, Betty had seen numerous reruns of numerous crime shows and wondered if a forensic accountant was a CSI for divorces. A divorce was surely a kind of death: a murder, in fact. It was the memories, so stubbornly happy and lifeless and useless, stinking with decay, that lay in a putrid heap like a rotting corpse. If only the memories were a corpse, Betty thought, and could be buried under six feet of clotted dirt. But they never really died, did they? They wandered through her thoughts and her heart like scabby zombies. A forensic accountant could never find the murderer if he couldn't even discover the dead body. It was better on television. "I like the one with the bugs," she said out loud.

"What?"

"I don't like the one with the sunglasses."

"What are you talking about, Mother?"

"Television."

"I have a migraine," Miranda said. She stared at Frederick Barrow's granddaughters and felt angry.

Betty put the back of her hand on her daughter's forehead. "Do you have a fever? Do you want to go home? Do you have that medicine? The kind you roll onto your forehead? Maybe you'll feel better if you lie down."

Miranda pulled away from her mother's hand.

"Who is that young woman leading Frederick away from Annie?" Betty asked. "Is that his little doxy?"

"That's his daughter, Mother."

"Well, thank God for daughters," Betty said, giving Miranda's arm a squeeze. "But, I mean, really." And she departed, pulled open the sliding glass door, and stood in the dark, moist air to brood in peace about Joseph and his irreconcilable differences.

At the same time that Betty retreated to the outdoors, Miranda saw Roberts coming toward her again. She gulped down the rest of her Scotch and headed for the bar to refill. Doddery old lawyer — was everyone here two years old or a hundred and one? Roberts wasn't really doddering, to be fair: he had a steady gait; he was tall and straight and had the pleasantly browned, pleasantly leathery skin of someone who spends a lot of time outdoors. He was rather distinguished-looking. A thin beakish nose, the kind that could be acquiline and English or acquiline and Italian or just Jewish. And he had a pretty mouth. Betty had pointed that out — how his mouth was soft and so different from the rest of his face. But Miranda was in no mood to appreciate his handsome mouth or relative good health. Her head was throbbing and her heart was breaking.

Roberts stood beside her and refilled his wineglass. Seeing no escape, Miranda gave a wan smile.

"Is everything all right?" he asked. "Your mother..."

"She's in mourning. It's very tiring for her."

"I like your mother. She's kind of indefatigable. But I suppose even she has to give in now and then. Age is exhausting sometimes, exhausting if you hold it at bay, more exhausting if you give in. My mother used to say you have to be brave to get old." He stopped, as if his flow of words surprised him as much as it did Miranda. "Not that your mother is old, of course," he added. "I was thinking more of myself."

"Oh, you're as young as springtime," Miranda said politely, though she was thinking he had to be seventy if he was a day. And how dreary of him to speak about aging, as if it were synonymous with living. The image of Kit, young and shining with curiosity and hope, his vibrant child at his side, shot into her thoughts almost painfully.

Roberts laughed. "I've seen a few springtimes, anyway," he said. "You, on the other hand, look wonderful. I heard what happened that day you went out kayaking, and I admit I was worried about you. I feel a little responsible. I never should have let you go out on such a rough day."

Miranda wondered if the semiretired lawyer had taken a wee drop too much. Never had she heard such a flow of words emanate from his, admittedly — give the devil his due, as Josie always said — lovely lips. "You're so sweet," she said, thinking, Go away, geezer, please. "But first of all, you couldn't have stopped me. No one can stop me, I'm an absolute nightmare. And, as it turned out, it was a lucky day after all. My kayaking adventure brought us a new friend — Kit Maybank. Have you met him? Kit rescued me from certain near-death. He's an actor. He was supposed to be here, but he just got a part in a film and had to leave. He's extremely talented." She found that once she mentioned Kit, she had a hard time leaving the subject. "He has a child, a beautiful little boy named Henry..."

"Ah," Roberts said in his quiet voice.

"Henry," Miranda repeated, almost belligerently, as if Roberts had snubbed the boy. "Henry looks just like his father."

Roberts mumbled something inaudible and retreated into his customary silence.

As they filed into the dining room, Frederick held one of his rosy granddaughters on his shoulders. The little girl began drumming on his head and singing in a high wail that carried surprisingly well across the large room, then was seated beside her sister, the two of them lolling in their chairs, their heads tilted back, their tongues hanging from their mouths.

Annie was on the other side of the long table, toward the head, sitting in what she hoped was quiet, self-contained dignity. She could sense Frederick across from her, near the foot of the table, but she did not look up to see. If he had not been intimate when they spoke, he had been warm. But at the arrival of Gwen and her entourage, he had become suddenly quite solemn and had melted away with them as if he had never been there at all.

"You shouldn't have," she heard him say, and looked up to see one of the girls — Annie could not tell if it was Juliet or Ophelia, or Medea, for that matter, she thought irritably — press a honey-soaked piece of challah into his hand.

Miranda came up behind him and pointed to the empty chair beside Annie.

Annie quickly looked away.

"There's a seat beside Annie," Miranda said shrilly to Frederick. "Go, go!" She put her hand in the small of his back and gave him a little shove.

What is wrong with her? Annie thought, coloring.

What is wrong with him? Miranda wondered. Carpe diem, carpe, carpe, carpe! she wanted to cry out. She felt quite heroic, facilitating her sister's romance when she herself was so leaden and alone. She had checked her cell phone several times, retreating to the powder room to do so, but Kit had not so much as texted her. Of course, he was still on the plane, she knew that, but that did not make her sense of abandonment any less painful. She would have thought he could send her just a few words from the airport before he left, or e-mail a picture of Henry strapped into his seat. She longed to check her phone again, but would have to wait until they were sitting down. Then she would surreptitiously remove it from her jacket pocket, hold it on her lap, and glance at it, the way Annie's boys were always doing, the way she had done when she still had a real life with real work. The thought of her smashed career came back, after leaving her alone for the last few peaceful weeks, searing and bitter, rising like bile. Furious, she nudged Frederick again. If she had lost everything and everyone, then at least Annie should have her novelist.

Frederick hesitated, then murmured that he ought to stay close to his granddaughters, and slid into the nearest chair. Juliet and Ophelia, the smocking of their red velvet dresses now smeared with a layer of golden honey that was studded with yellow challah crumbs, smiled at Miranda and licked their fingers.

In the background Annie heard a man's voice, a singsong voice mottled with static. It was Rosalyn's father, Mr. Shpuntov. He was in his room now, his words reaching the dining room through the intercom that had been installed to keep track of him and was kept on at all times.

"He sold bananas," said the voice. "Hung them in the basement to ripen. Have you ever seen bananas in the Bronx, Mr. Eight-o-seven? A basement full of bananas in the Bronx..."

Mr. Eight-o-seven? Annie looked at her watch. Ah. Mr. Shpuntov was telling stories to the clock.

"It was wonderful seeing all of you ladies," Frederick said to Annie and Miranda and Betty at the end of the evening.

Miranda looked at him scornfully.

"Oh dear! Mother!" she then said. "Mr. Shpuntov is drinking the dregs." And she purposefully dragged her mother off to stop Rosalyn's father in his procession down one side of the table and then up the other, raising half-finished glasses of wine to his lips and draining them.

But she saw, as she relieved Mr. Shpuntov of a goblet, that Frederick had not lingered to exchange an intimate goodbye with Annie as Miranda had hoped. He had simply nodded his head, said, "Well, bye," turned on his heel, and walked out the door to wait while Gwen held up the girls, one by one, to be kissed by Cousin Lou.