He swallowed half the martini, then spoke rapidly, not looking at me. “I found my father’s body. I know Mother told you that. She doesn’t know I found his suicide note.”

I put my glass down so fast that whisky slopped over the rim.

“It was meant for her, for Mother. If he’d known I was going to find his body, he would never have killed himself as he did, or where he did. Exeter sent us home in a hurry because three of the boys came down with polio. I didn’t bother to telegraph them. I was used to coming home alone and I knew Mother was in Washington. With Calvin.

“There’s a study on the first floor, where my father would read, watch television. I went to look for him when I arrived, hoping he was in. And found him hanging over the desk. It was-” He covered his face with his hands. The image was vivid in his head even fortyfive years later.

“I cut him down, I tried to give him artificial respiration-they taught us that at summer camp or someplace. All I could think was that Grandmother must not know. She hated my father using the study: it was a man’s room, she said, built by her husband for doing man’s work, so she would never enter it, once my father took it over. I covered his face with my coat. And then I saw the note.” He took his wallet from his breast pocket and removed a much-creased sheet of paper. A schoolboy’s round hand covered the page.

Did you begrudge me a little love, Geraldine? I never held your loves against you, but you’ve used mine to help your own lover. I know Olin and Calvin have always been at odds. I know Olin believes things that no right-minded person can support, but love’s a malady without a cure, and I loved Olin. Now that you’ve seen us together, and told Calvin, Olin plans to tell the world that I tried to seduce him, that I shocked him with my homosexual declarations.

The truth is-no one knows the truth. Olin and I recognized each other the first time we met. We fell in love. We snatched odd meetings in New York or Washington. And now he plans to betray me to the world to save his own skin-no, not even that, to gain advantage over Calvin.

I am sick in heart and body and mind and there is no cure, no way to continue on this planet, watching you helplessly in love with Calvin while he abandons you, watching Olin betray me, watching your mother watch us all with her malevolent glare. Only Darraugh ties me to the earth and he will soon be in the wider world, leaving me behind. Do as you will when you find me.

When I handed it back, Darraugh continued harshly, “We didn’t talk about homosexuality when I was a teenager, not the way they do now. I was shocked. Everything that afternoon was a shock. I was like young Catherine, reeling from watching my universe disintegrate. Sitting there with my father’s body, my one thought was to protect him. From my grandmother, my mother, Olin. I didn’t know anyone to talk to. In my panic I chose Renee. I thought she was an outsider, a newcomer, she could keep Olin from doing what he threatened. I showed her the letter and she said she could manage things to protect my father’s secret.”