Wallis had already found the new arrival a glass of champagne, and now was holding forth near the couch, cracking people up. I watched Bo watch my sister, formulating a plan for how to acknowledge it when Bo asked, “How is Wallis?” He cleared his throat. “I mean, she tells me she’s fine, but, according to the polls, it looks like Darley will win. Is she...prepared for when he descends on DC?”

L.K.’s elbow briefly dug into my side, as if to say See? I did, I saw it, and all that was unspoken in his question. I didn’t want to trick Bo into believing something was there between him and my sister if there wasn’t, but I didn’t want to flatten his hopes, either. So I tried to remember the last time I heard Blake Darley’s name from Wallis. It had been a while. Immediately following his primary win, maybe. “I think she’s on her way to finishing that chapter of her life,” I hedged.

He nodded, and I saw a hint of pleasure in the curve of his lips. “That’s good.”

From across the room, Wallis held out her hand to beckon him over. “Help me get people arranged for the viewing, Bo? I think it’s time to turn it on.”

Bo looked at me, apologetic, and I gave him a shove forward. “By all means,” I said, grinning. “Go.”

As he walked away, L.K. did a little shimmy of excitement.

I stood in the back of the room with Wallis and Cricket as my interview played, and tried not to dwell too much on how weird my voice sounded, or how my blazer was higher on one shoulder than the other. Guests piled on the sofa and the arms of the chair and cross-legged on the floor where the coffee table normally would go.

“As a wise friend once put it, women feel the need to either apologize for or deny the behavior of men we love,” I was saying to Monica, recalling my late-night chat with the Judge and Aunt Jane in Charleston.

“That’s my daughter!” whispered Cricket, proud.

“That’s the game many women have to play, though,” said Monica. “To get ahead, or to get approval, or to just stay alive.”