Jack and Glenda Sedge were waiting for me to speak.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“It’s her legacy,” said Glenda.

The hands in her lap were as still as her face: the eyes widely spaced, the long upper lip forbidding when she didn’t smile. I’d overheard Jack say that her students were her family. At least Maddy still existed for her. But was the film Maddy’s legacy? Who was to say what Maddy’s legacy was? Jack could be forgiven; he was young. Glenda Sedge was not, and she was a strong personality besides. Activists could be single-minded, obsessive, even. I knew Maddy had liked and respected her very much; but it was possible that, for her own reasons, the woman had persuaded Maddy to do what was needed for the campaign. This had not occurred to me at the time, so relieved had I been that she had companions and activities to throw herself into. I should have kept a closer watch.

Jack ventured: “She worked so hard on that thing. I know she wanted people to see it. She wanted it to be part of the campaign . . . Maddy was a fantastic artist. Everyone said so. She did it all, you know. I just helped on the technical side.”

In the long dreamlike months after Maddy died, Jack had come to visit me, I don’t know how many times. Through my delirium, I could see that being in our house was a compulsion and an agony for him. His face distorted horribly when he spoke of her. Now, nearly a year later, his gaze was clear, his features smooth and unmarked. Did he have a new girlfriend? Had he written Maddy into an adolescent myth of fate, sex, and death? I would never know and I shouldn’t mind. It was what healthy young people did. One day the story would elicit the tenderness of his future wife, and he would seem deeper and more alluring because of it.

“She was very talented,” I said. “But you did it together. She needed you, Jack.” I saw in his eyes then a flicker of gratitude and concealed misery, a conduit briefly opened to the reservoir of his grief. The knowledge passed silently between us, making me glad, and guilty to feel glad, before he shifted his legs and the moment passed. But I knew without a doubt that Jack was a part of Maddy and one of her keepers, and so, in her own way, was Glenda Sedge.

“It’s entirely up to you,” said Glenda. “You and what Maddy would have wanted.”

Would have: that detested phrase. “I’m not sure. I’ll think about it.”

•  •  •