“But a harmless one, surely? After all, even you agree she loved both men, had sex with both of them willingly. So,” he asked again, “what difference does it make?”

I stared at him doubtfully. No matter how she felt about her husband or her lover, I still thought there was a moral issue here. In fact, I knew there was. Dermot didn’t seem to be able to discern that. I wondered if my great-grandfather would agree with me or with Dermot. I had a sinking feeling I knew.

“I better get back to work,” I said, with a tight smile. “Got to mop the kitchen. You going to get back to work in the attic?”

He nodded enthusiastically. “I love the machinery,” he said.

“Please close the attic door, then, because I’ve dusted down here and I don’t want to have to do that again before tomorrow afternoon.”

“Sure, Sookie.”

Dermot went up the stairs whistling. It was a tune I’d never heard before, which figured.

I gathered up the pictures, keeping separate the ones that Dermot had earmarked as featuring his brother. I was considering building a little fire with them. Up in the attic, the sander started up. I looked at the ceiling as if I could see Dermot through the boards. Then I shook myself and went back to work, but in an abstracted and uneasy mood.

When I was standing on a stepladder hanging the WELCOME BABY sign from the light fixture, I remembered I had to iron my great-grandmother’s tablecloth. I hate ironing, but it had to be done, and better today than tomorrow. When the stepladder was put away, I opened the ironing board—there’d been a built-in one in the previous kitchen—and set to work. The tablecloth was not exactly white anymore. It had aged to ivory. I soon had it smooth and beautiful, and touching it reminded me of high occasions in the past. I’d seen pictures including this very piece of cloth today; it had been on the kitchen table or the old sideboard for Thanksgivings and Christmases and wedding showers and anniversaries. I loved my family, and I loved those memories. I only regretted that there were so few of us to recall them.

And I was aware of another truth, another real thing. I realized I really didn’t appreciate the fairy sense of fun that had made a lie out of some of those memories.

By three that afternoon, the house was as close to ready as I could get it. The sideboard was draped with the tablecloth, the paper plates and napkins were out, the plastic forks and spoons. I’d polished the silver nut dish and a little tray for the cheese straws, which I’d made and frozen a couple of weeks before. I ran down my checklist. I was as ready as I could possibly be.