“Walter said he was kind to her. It was a good thing she wrote to him. Is that the way you see it? He’s not just saying that to justify himself?”

“They wrote back and forth for months. It seemed pretty friendly.”

“I just hope Maddy got something from it,” said my mother hoarsely.

“Oh, she did!” I leapt on that. “I think it was very important to her.”

“Antonio.” My mother frowned. “After all this time! Have you thought this through, Eve?”

“I can get his side of the story, at least.”

She gazed at me for a moment, her anguish subdued in the lifelong habit of counsel. “Is that really why you want to go, sweetie? To get his side of the story?”

The back door scraped open and the hallway was filled with panting dog.

“Well, why else would I be going!”

“You know best, Evie,” said my mother, and I let her pat my arm. My father stood in the doorway, his glasses steamed over from the cold, stamping his shoes, peeling off his gloves, oblivious to what had just taken place.

Maddy

24

So, the place turned out to be awesome. Robin came up with the plan to go, the three of us, on a Friday to avoid the weekend crowds and to fit it in before I went for scans and blood work Monday morning. My mother loved Fallingwater. Robin had never been, and I had gone once when I was eleven. My main memory was of a white-haired lady in the gift shop who let me go behind the counter and punch numbers into the cash register.

The visitor center was in the middle of the forest and made of raw wood. Ramps went up to it on three sides, like it was a waiting spaceship, and there were three pods: a museum in one, a café in one, and the gift shop in the other, where my mother almost bought something for holding letters, with carving on the sides like stained glass windows. She said she didn’t get many letters these days. I said that’s not the point, Robin said go for it, but then we had to rush to get to the tour and she put it back. My mother can be too reasonable. She denies herself things.

“You’ll love this place,” I told Robin on the ramp where our group was assembling.

“I do already. Why?”

“All the wood.”

“The house isn’t made of wood,” said my mother. “Remember? It’s concrete. The only thing I’m not sure about is the color.”

“What color?” asked Robin.

“Pink.”

“Pink?” he said. “You didn’t tell me that. I would have stayed home.”