“He walks down from the house, and, okay, sometimes he winds up at the Clam Shack or the bookstore, but they always point him back to me.” She laughs. “Once he came down in his pajamas, it was cute, really. When Joe—you know, from the jeans place, well, actually you don’t know because it opened after you left, but trust me, Joe is God’s gift to tourism because he carries things tourists don’t know they need until they need them—when Joe saw him on the sidewalk in his pajamas, he pulled him inside and dressed him in a shirt and shorts so he was looking pret-ty spiffy when he got to my place.”

She seems amused. I am appalled. The Tom Aldiss we’d grown up with was a formal man who would never have left the house in his pajamas. He didn’t even come down to breakfast at home in his pajamas.

“He has a favorite table,” Anne cruises on, “and he heads straight there. I mean, it used to be a problem if it was already taken, but by now pretty much everyone knows that it’s his, so they leave it open.” Half to herself, she says, “That could be dicey with summer people. Maybe I should put a RESERVED sign there. But the shop isn’t big, and he doesn’t come every day, so I hate to waste the space.” She returns to me. “He loves the new girl I hired—did I tell you about her? She’s been in town maybe a month, but it’s like she’s been here forever. Dad gets all quiet when he sees her. If someone else has taken his table, she calms him down, sets him up at the counter, and brings his coffee and his bacon and eggs and cinnamon toast. He doesn’t take his eyes off her.”

“What about his hands?”

“What?”

“Sexual harassment.”

“Right,” Joy whispers. Her school is big on discussing that.

“Christ, Mallory,” Anne cries. “She’s barely twenty. He doesn’t touch her.”

“God, I hope not. He was a judge. People know him. They remember that night.”

“You remember that night,” my sister argues. “It’s all you have to measure life here by, but those of us who live here have moved on. No one talks about it. Trust me, there’s plenty else to discuss.”

For me, as well. “Annie, about tonight. Do you think Jack was telling the truth?”

She grunts. “Who knows. The guy has a major chip on his shoulder when it comes to our family, like we personally ruined his life or something.”

“If Dad did have a gun that night—”

“No, Mallory. He didn’t. If Dad stands for anything, it’s the truth.”

“Right.” I roll my eyes. “The whole truth and nothing but.”