“She is,” I say with a helpless little smile that is erased in the next instant by a sharp, loud noise inside the house. For a breath, I remember the gun in the shed that did not kill my dad. But no. This is the clatter of a dish or a pot, and I feel a twinge at not helping Lina. What I’m doing out here on the steps is selfish. But I’m not ready for it to end.

Neither, apparently, is Paul. “If not Tom, who?” he asks.

“Beats me,” I say in an attempt to lighten the charge. “Jack says there were rumors.”

“About your mom?”

I nod. “Kind of horrifying, I know. But Jack heard them. You never heard any?”

He looks frustrated, my mother’s champion even now. “I’m on the far side of Westerly. I don’t hear much of what’s said on this side. Who are the possibilities?”

“Pharmacist,” I say. “Roofer. Gardener.”

He winces. “Roberto Aiello?”

“You know the name?”

“Definitely. Tom was so jealous of the man that he made Ellie let him go midway through the summer season. Aiello was known for liking women, so your dad had cause. But he shared his suspicion with the wrong person, and it got back to Aiello, who threatened to sue for libel. Your mother asked me whether he had a case. That’s how I know the name.”

“Did Mom say whether she was ever involved with him?”

“She was not,” he says with certainty.

I’m about to ask how he can be so sure about this after being circumspect about the rest—whether he asked Mom outright about Aiello—when his eyes shoot to the road. A car has appeared on the cusp of the hill and pulls onto the berm at the very start of the large open circle, as far from Mike Hartley’s truck as possible. The couple who climb out are casually dressed and carry foil-covered plates. I draw a blank on their names.

“Chief Justice Walker and his wife,” Paul reminds me and, standing, extends a hand for mine.

I hesitate, feeling instant panic, thinking that greeting mourners will make this real, that I’m not ready and don’t know what to say and would rather be anywhere else. I’m that child again, a child of the late Tom Aldiss.

But Paul’s warm hand firmly draws me up. Close to my ear, he says, “When a sick person dies, we see them at their worst. Then friends come to share good memories, and it helps. Let’s remember Tom at his best.”

Chapter 23