Wesley sits, sort of, but his arms keep demonstrating the massive arc of the wave that was nearly the death of me. “It came over like this! She missed the top and just went head over—head over—” He’s laughing too hard to go on, the little brat.

“She looked like a drowned rat,” Doris says helpfully.

Leo looks at me. “You all right?”

“Perfectly fine, thank you.”

“So?” he says to Doris. “Then what happened? Did she pick herself right back up and get back in the water?”

“Yes, she did,” I tell him.

“Only because Mama made her,” Doris says.

“Like riding a horse,” says Lindquist. “You fall off, you get straight back on again. And then she did very well. We’ll make a surfer of her yet.”

I drink the wine. “I’m afraid I’m not planning to stick around that long. But I appreciate the thought.”

Leo falls quiet. The conversation turns to school, about which I have some opinions, because it’s awfully satisfying to have opinions about other people’s affairs, don’t you think? Lani brings in dessert, which is some kind of pound cake dressed in pineapple sauce, and then Lindquist shoos the children off to help clear the table and bathe and change for bed. As I said, a mother who believes in the healthfulness of routine, or else she has another design in mind when she exits the room on some motherly errand, and Leo and I are left alone to contemplate each other across the table.

He rises and divides the remaining wine between my glass and his.

“Not staying long, you said?”

“I’m here on business, I’m afraid. Isn’t that the very first thing I told you, the other night? Are you here for business or pleasure, you asked me, and I said Business, plain as day.”

“Irene says you’re writing a book.”

“Well, Irene’s right. I’m writing a biography of Samuel Mallory. The pilot? He taught your stepmother how to fly.”

“Yes,” Leo says. “I know.”

“I should hope so. He was one of the greatest pilots of his time. So I’ve come to talk to your stepmother about him, since—well, since I suppose you could say she knew him best. Didn’t she?”

Leo pushes away his wineglass and leans forward to fix his eyes on mine. “So listen. I think it’s time we got something straight between the two of us.”

“I think that’s a fine idea.”

“I don’t hold it against you, sleeping with me to get to my stepmother—”

“To be fair, I didn’t know she was your stepmother.”