The words hung in the air between us. In slow motion, without a sound, my mother’s face deformed into a rictus of despair. She held out as long as she could, fighting for mastery, until with jerky in-breaths and a toss of her hands, she began to cry as she had never cried before, not through the year of Maddy’s illness, not during the service, not in the long cold months since, when she was being strong for me. The wordless keening went on and on, as though she had drilled through to a secret source of fuel, while across from her, patting her soft-boned hand where it lay on the table, I watched with alarm and envy this act of nature that I had set in motion and was powerless to stop.

My mother grew quiet. She withdrew her hand and blew her nose.

“Goodness.” Her blank eyes looked through me. “Goodness! Where did that come from?”

“Where do you think it came from?”

Now she fixed a hungry gaze on my face. “How,” she said, in little above a whisper, “can a person just disappear? It makes no sense.”

“Blame God,” I said briefly, “not yourself.”

“Don’t be angry, Eve.”

“I’m not.” I squeezed her hand. “I’m not.” But I was. Underneath my compassion for what my mother had lost and her wrangles with her faith, deep inside my answering grief, I was unreasonably, ungenerously, incurably angry. Mine had just happened. Mine was maternal, the worst kind. I would go under if I had to take on hers too.

“Thank goodness you have Robin!” declared my mother. “Dear, dear Robin.”

“Mom,” I said, “I’m going to London.”

“London?”

“For work.”

She looked confused.

“I ran the idea past Claire today. I think she’ll go for it.”

“Well, good for you, sweetie,” she said dully. “That’s exciting.”

“There’s another reason.”

“What’s that?”

“I want to look up Antonio.”

Surprise barely registered on my mother’s face. “Walter told me about the letters.”

“He did?”

“Don’t be mad at him, Eve.”

So they had discussed it and arrived at the party line: I was not to be mad at my father. My family spent all their time making sure no one got angry with anyone else. Anger had certainly been in the air when I told them I was going to raise my child without a father. Walter’s jaw made of stone, Rose’s blurry eyes avoiding mine. They rallied soon enough, and stood behind me, and loved Maddy more than anything, but even so, at the time I had delivered a blow to their life plan.

“You didn’t know Maddy and Antonio were in touch?”

“I had no idea. Your father sure can keep a secret.”

“So could Maddy.”