Leanne produced an uncomfortable laugh and turned away.

"Okay, I know it's unlikely, our friendship." Miranda felt almost elated, declaring friendship, just like that. "Bizarre that Kit brought us together..."

"Henry brought us together," she heard Leanne say.

Miranda had never really discussed Kit with anyone, but now she found herself compelled to talk about him to the last person in the world she should. "I guess I just needed you to understand about Kit. Because you're the only one who really can." She heard how ungainly she sounded, on and on in an inappropriate, breathless rush, yet she couldn't stop. "All those stories from Maine, they meant so much to me; I was just so happy to be around someone who had such an idyllic childhood, especially after all my Awful Authors and their gruesome stories of childhood, which all turned out to be fake anyway; it was just so comforting, and inspiring, actually, to meet someone normal, someone who didn't have anything to hide, whose childhood was so real, and so real to him..."

As she was speaking, Leanne leaned toward her across the table in an almost menacing posture. After every few words she would try to interrupt Miranda, but Miranda stumbled on. She felt like a broken-down racehorse who has to reach the finish or his heart will break. It was suddenly urgent that she explain herself. "My whole career was built on cheesy lurid tragedy. Cheesy lurid tragedy that turned out to be fake cheesy lurid tragedy. Think how that felt. It felt like shit, okay? So think how refreshing it was to talk to someone who grew up in a family full of love and fun and birds and wildflowers..."

"Jesus!" Leanne said. "Stop! I can't stand it anymore. Love and fun and birds and wildflowers? I'm going to puke. Christ almighty..."

Miranda did stop. She became very serious. In a firm voice she said, "Look, whatever Kit did to me, or to you, it's crazy the way we never mention him. I've been worse than you, I know. But I was wrong, okay? We should be able to speak honestly about Kit."

"Honestly? About Kit? Really? Okay. For starters, Kit did not grow up in Maine," Leanne said. "Okay? Got it? He's never even been to Maine. And he didn't have any brothers or sisters. Not a one. He was an only child, okay? And his father? Left when he was two, never showed his face again. The mother? The mother was a drunk who barely knew he existed..."

Miranda sat down heavily at the kitchen table. "Gosh. Really?"

"It's a performance, Miranda. Kit pretends," Leanne said. "That's what he does."

Leanne was on a tear now — how Kit had usurped her Waspy name "because he's a snob, do you get that? Because it made him sound East Coast Waspy"; his pretensions in dress and speech; his irresponsible spending on clothes and cars and boats they could not afford in order to impress his friends; the grandiosity; the selfishness, the lying — always, first, last, and in between, the lying. "You found him boyish. I get that. But there's another side to boyish when the boy lives off credit cards he can't pay, when the boy is thirty-five years old and has never had a job..."

"He's thirty-five? He said he was thirty."

"Too old for you?" Leanne gave Miranda a sharp look, then her face softened into affection. "Poor Miranda."

Maybe it was the gentleness of Leanne's voice, maybe it was simply the last straw, the final example of her own inability to see what was in front of her, but the tears, the bankruptcy tears, the Kit tears, the self-pity, stupidity, whirling queasy exhaustion tears were coming; she could feel them welling up, weeks', months', worth of tears. "Not very good at telling fact from fiction, am I? No wonder I went bankrupt. I'm such an ass. Such a fool... How pathetic..."

Oh, she was feeling sorry for herself now. The shrill insistence of her voice — that always came first. That was the warm-up. Soon the games would begin in earnest, she thought, the Olympic tantrums, the dramatic flinging of arms, the cries of despair. Leanne had never seen her in full sail.

Leanne stood up, moved toward Miranda. "You like a happy ending, Miranda. Nothing wrong with that."

"Except they're not real," Miranda said, her voice rising, tangled in the words. "There are no happy endings."

Leanne stood beside her now. From her chair, Miranda pressed her face against Leanne's waist and began to sob. Leanne held her close and stroked her head until the storm subsided.

Embarrassed at her outburst, Miranda tried to laugh. "Drama is draining," she said.

Leanne sat back down, tilted her head, like Henry.

Miranda reached out and poked her cheek. "You're real, right?"

With a little grimace, Leanne said, "I'm not very good at pretending, if that's what you mean."

There was a heavy, tense moment of silence between them.

Leanne reached across the table and took Miranda's hand. "Not for very long, anyway."

As Leanne's fingers closed over Miranda's, there came a jarring sound, a little shout from the doorway, a sudden shrill "No!"

Miranda jumped. Leanne pulled her hand back. They both turned to the door.

Henry stood there staring at them.

"We were just..." they both began, then stopped. They were just what?

"No!" Henry said again. "Betty says No, she does not want a cracker." He turned and ran back to the living room calling, "I told them! I told them!"

Miranda noticed the top of the almond butter jar on the table. She automatically began to screw it back on.

At Cousin Lou's, the dinners had become somewhat less elaborate. There was a downturn in the real estate market, which did not affect Lou too much. He had made his bundle, as he liked to say, thinking of a package shaped something like a baby, wrapped in cloth and cradled in his arms. He had made his bundle and taken it out of real estate some years ago. Unfortunately, he had put the helpless little bundle into the stock market, and though it lived, it suffered, and so did Lou's parties, causing some of the hangers-on to let go. Annie was glad to see that Roberts was not one of them. It did pain her, though, to imagine what he felt when he saw Miranda so often, for he saw her at the Maybanks' house on Beachside Avenue as well as at Lou's. He turned up frequently at the cottage, too. People should not retire, she thought. They should not even semiretire. Obviously Roberts had nothing better to do than follow Miranda around.

But Annie was glad to see him for her own sake. He was quiet and restful as a companion. Annie could sit beside him at dinner, notice the elegance of his long, slender hands as he held a glass or passed her the salt, and still never leave her own thoughts, which were so sad, but somehow almost dear to her. Thoughts of Frederick. Poor man. Foolish man. Poor, foolish, weak man. She could not help but worry about him. They had heard nothing, though, not a word, not about Amber or a marriage or a baby, not about anything. Even Betty had stopped mentioning him, stopped insinuating that there was anything between him and Annie. As for Miranda, she had, at Annie's insistence, never mentioned Amber, Frederick, or the pregnancy again. She had been, briefly, more gentle with Annie, which Annie found both touching and cloying. But now, thankfully, Miranda was off on a cloud as usual.

Off on a cloud as usual, though the cloud itself was new, different. No man, no love affair, no histrionics. Just... friendship? Babysitting? A tremendous amount of amateur gardening, certainly. The front yard was all dug up. She had become like some Victorian companion or maiden aunt. Annie did not understand any of it. But Miranda was happy, and that was all that mattered. Although how she would earn a living now that her agency had really disappeared altogether, Annie had no idea. Perhaps she could hire her at the library. The library that was cutting staff...

"I saw your sister today," Roberts was saying. He had brought her a glass of wine, and they stood before Lou's big windows. The moon was exceptionally bright. They could see the Sound spread out beneath it. "She was weeding at the Maybanks'."

"Maybe they'll hire her as their gardener."

"I don't think so. She was digging the weeds up very carefully and putting them in a basket. She plans to replant them. In the woods."

"Miranda likes to rescue things." She sighed.

"So do you," said Roberts.

They were silent. The wind was driving silver clouds across the face of the moon.

Annie thought, What a polite man he is.

Roberts swirled the wine in his glass. "Miranda's lucky to have you."

"Oh, what is Miranda going to do?" Annie said, half to herself.

"And what is Charlotte going to do?"

It was only as she walked home in the moonlight that she wondered what he had meant. Perhaps all that talk about putting the ancestral portraits on the auction block was true.

"Roberts is there so often," Miranda said that night when Annie recounted her conversation. "How much business can they have?"

"He's here a lot, too," Betty pointed out.

"I'm sure he goes there to see you," Annie said.

"Maybe Henry is his love child," said Betty.

On one of springtime's bright afternoons, Betty stood in the kitchen of her bungalow and watched a small yellow-and-black bird flitting through the new leaves of a maple tree. Birds were meant to be free, one always heard that. Because they could fly. She remembered Rosalyn comparing Amber and Crystal to birds because they flew from nest to nest, but what did that really mean except that they had no home? Free as a bird. But how free were you if you were required to fly up and down the coast of the same continent, year after year, just as your father and mother did before you, just as your sons and daughters would do after you? That bright little bird — a goldfinch? — was not free at all. It was just another prisoner. With no home.

Betty laughed to herself. How macabre she had become. A pretty bird on a pretty day! She should be outside in the fresh air marveling at all of nature's wonders, not condemning innocent birds to the diaspora. She put on her sneakers, a jacket, her dark glasses and wide-brimmed sunhat, took a deep breath, and ventured forth.

The waves were uniform and hushed, each gentle white hiss followed by another. She saw some sea glass, a nice large piece, beautiful muted green, but she was too stiff to bend down and pick it up. In the distance she could make out the white sail of a little boat. Perhaps that was Miranda, out sailing in that peculiar Charlotte Maybank's boat with Henry and his mother. Betty had warned her to wear a sweater under her jacket. It was so breezy, and the sun was deceptive. There was still a chill in the air. A few years ago, Betty would not have thought of a sweater. She would have thought only of the exhilarating snap of the sail. She would have been on the boat herself. But those days were gone. Perhaps she would drive downtown and get a cup of coffee at Starbucks. Annie would not approve. Annie thought Betty should make coffee at home and bring it with her in a thermos, but where was the fun in that? Soon the concession would be open at the beach and Betty would be able to get coffee there. It would be summer again, and children would descend on the sand, their mothers, on cell phones, trailing after them laden with beach chairs and buckets. Now, though, there was only a man with an Irish setter whose coat gleamed in the sun. Perhaps she would get her hair colored to match the dog's. She could ask the man for a hank of dog hair and bring it to her colorist.

Slowly, Betty walked back to the house. She had made it a home, with the help of her girls. She had always made a home for them, one way or another, and they for her. But they couldn't live with her forever. They were grown women. And so was she. She wondered if and when she would be going back to her apartment. A woman alone. Homeless as a bird.

She felt awfully tired. Her head began to hurt. Her neck was so stiff. Her head was pounding now. She saw the little cottage and wondered if she would be able take the steps necessary to reach it. One step. Two. She counted. Ten. She was at the cracked concrete stoop. The pain in her head shot into the sky, exploded there, hurtled back down at alarming speed; and again, like the little waves. Step. Step. Thirteen, her lucky number, for she had reached the couch in her house. The couch was beneath her. The pain in her head screamed out loud. There was no one to hear. No one, Betty thought, except me.