“They don’t have anything to do with her. She’d be a good deal better off if she learned not to poke around in other people’s closets.”

“Louisa’s past matters a lot to Caroline. Louisa is dying and Caroline is feeling very lonely. She’d like to know who her father was.”

“And that’s why you came down here? To help her dig up all that trash? She should be ashamed she doesn’t have any father, instead of talking about it with everyone she knows.”

“What’s she supposed to do?” I asked impatiently. “Kill herself because Louisa never married the man who got her pregnant? You act like it was all Louisa and Caroline’s fault. Louisa was sixteen years old—fifteen when she got pregnant. Don’t you think the man had any responsibility in this?”

She clenched the coffee cup so tightly, I was afraid the ceramic might shatter. “Men—have difficulty controlling themselves. We all know that,” she said thickly. “Louisa must have led him on. But she would never admit it.”

“All I want to know is his name,” I said as quietly as I could. “I think Caroline has a right to know if she really wants to. And a right to see if her father’s family would give her a little warmth.”

“Rights!” she said bitterly. “Caroline’s rights. Louisa’s! What about my right to a life of peace and decency? You’re as bad as your mother was.”

“Yeah,” I said. “In my book that’s a compliment.”

Behind me someone turned a key in the back door. Martha paled slightly and set down her coffee cup.

“You must not mention any of this in front of him,” she said urgently. “Tell him you were just visiting Louisa and stopped by. Promise, Victoria.”

I made a sour face. “Yeah, sure, I suppose.”

As Ed Djiak came into the room Martha said brightly, “See who’s come to visit us? You’ll never recognize her from the little Victoria she used to be!”

Ed Djiak was tall. All the lines in his face and body were elongated, like a Modigliani painting, from his long, cavernous face to his long, dangling fingers. Caroline and Louisa inherited their short, square good looks from Martha. Who knows where their lively tempers came from.

“So, Victoria. You went off to the University of Chicago and got too good for the old neighborhood, huh?” He grunted and shifted a sack of groceries onto the table. “I got the apples and pork chops, but the beans didn’t look right so I didn’t buy any.”

Martha quickly unpacked the groceries and stowed them and the bag in their appointed cells. “Victoria and I were just having some coffee, Ed. You want a cup?”

“You think I’m some old lady to drink coffee in the middle of the day? Get me a beer.”

He sat down at the end of the small table. Martha moved to the refrigerator, which stood immediately to his side, and took a Pabst from the bottom shelf. She poured it carefully into a glass mug and put the can in the trash.