Nell must have realized he was losing it because she put her hand on his arm and gave a light squeeze.

“Look, man. Am I supposed to know you?”

He struggled for composure. “I’m Mat Jorik. I used to be married to Sandy, Joanne’s daughter. This is . . . my wife Nell.”

He nodded at Nell. Button started batting her baby blues at him, and he smiled back. “Cute kid. Joanne was worried when Sandy got pregnant because of her drinking. They didn’t get along too good.”

“Sandy didn’t drink when she was pregnant.” Lucy started working on the other thumbnail.

Button wanted down, and Nell lowered her to the floor. The toddler immediately began waddling around the coffee table, toes pointed outward like a drunken ballerina. Mat needed to get himself under control, so he headed for the framed snapshots sitting on the dusty wooden mantel in the feeble hope that they might tell him something.

The pictures in the front were all of Joanne and Nico. They could have been mother and son, except for the hungry way they looked at each other. Joanne had been an attractive woman, slim and well proportioned, with long salt and pepper hair parted in the center and held away from her face with barrettes. Her gauzy skirts, loose-fitting tops, and silver jewelry bore the indelible stamp of an aging flower child. The proprietary way she leaned against Nico’s bare chest in one photo after another made it obvious that she’d been sexually smitten by him. As far as his attraction to a woman thirty-some years older—that was probably best sorted out on a psychiatrist’s couch.

The row of pictures in the back showed both Sandy and Lucy at various ages. He lingered over the pictures of Lucy. In the early ones she was too young to have figured out how to put on her tough act, and her bright eyes and wide smile showed a little girl in love with life. The hospital picture of Button with a misshapen head and mashed-in face bore no resemblance to the baby beauty queen who was currently trying to stuff a finger up her nose.

He was about to turn away when he caught sight of the photograph at the end of the row. It was a picture of Sandy and himself that had been taken at a friend’s party. Both of them were holding drinks, something they’d done a lot of in those days. She was beaming and beautiful with her dark hair and full mouth. He wondered if the tall, gangly kid sitting next to her trying too hard to look older could actually have been him. The photograph was depressing, and he turned away to see Nico staring at Nell.

“Don’t I , you know, know you from somewhere? ”

Before Nell could respond, Lucy said, “She looks like Cornelia Case, the First Lady.”