“Involved how?” I ask, edgy now in a different way. None of the options Jack and I had tossed around included Tom’s active involvement.

“When it started to fail, he helped her save it.”

“How?” my younger sister challenges in disbelief.

“By cooking the books.”

Anne rolls her eyes and, having clearly reached her limit, raises both hands. Her voice is suddenly temperate, as if what we’re discussing is no longer real. “Okay, I have my own business to run. I’m going back inside. If you want to stay at the house, Margo, that’s fine, but if you want to make Dad out to be a criminal, forget it. He’s an old man who is losing his mind. What’s the point?” Foregoing an answer, she opens the screen door and leaves.

I watch until her mesh form dissolves into the kitchen, then eye Margo. “Do you really believe he committed fraud?”

“I have an easier time believing that, than believing Mom was gay,” she says. Now that it’s just me, she seems to have exhaled. “He was capable of it. Lots of his clients cooked the books. He would know how it’s done, and if he didn’t, someone else in the firm would. I don’t know the details, Mal. And maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s been gnawing at me for the longest time, but maybe Anne’s right. What’s the point?”

“The point,” I say, thinking of Jack, “is learning as much as we can about what happened that night. If Dad is the last living witness and he’s losing it fast, this is our last chance.”

The frustration of it—the sadness—is suddenly overwhelming to me. As I look around searching for comfort somewhere, my eyes land on the picnic table where Jack sat yesterday. Where is he this Sunday morning? He must have friends. His life can’t be just work and books in the house on the bluff. There has to be more.

When Margo goes back inside, I pull out my phone. Where are you? I type into a text box, but the words are too demanding. Deleting them, I try again.

You’ll never guess what I just learned. Seconds later, I delete these, too. I have no idea what Jack will think of a relationship between his mother and mine. Texting isn’t the way to share it.

Guess who showed up this morning, I finally type, and this one I send.

Moving farther from the door, I watch for an ellipsis cloud, but none appears. Finally, desperate, I text Chrissie. Her ear would be nearly as welcome as Jack’s. She and I may not go back to childhood together, but we’re just as connected.

And doesn’t that give me pause. If my mother was gay, am I? Is that why I’ve never found a man I liked enough to commit to?