David still ate nuts and then slipped away to rinse his bridge rather than call attention to his problem. After he had helped himself modestly, each boy took one nut from the dish, mocking their mother’s rebuke until she was distracted and they helped themselves to large handfuls. David noticed that it was Mike who led in the prank. Probably some of this foolishness was really beneath Ben’s new college dignity, but he would keep that from his brother, in no way wanting to exaggerate this sudden gap between them. He would hang back at home until Mike caught up with him next year.

‘Now what about these rumours?’ David asked.

‘Aunt Mary thinks you’re courting,’ Ben said. ‘And she also thinks it’s undignified for a man of your age to ride the bus for such important purposes. Would you like your car back, Grandad? It would be a fine test for me to discover whether all these women are throwing themselves at my feet or the tyres of your Volvo.’

‘No, I don’t want the car back,’ David said. ‘Whatever put such an idea in Mary’s head?’

‘She only said,’ Laura protested, ‘that you’d been going out lately to see someone in particular. That’s all she said.’

‘And that you were buying new clothes,’ Ben insisted.

‘And, if it didn’t involve a woman, why would you be so secretive,’ Mike added.

‘Well, you know Mary,’ Laura said.

‘Put two and two together and make twenty-two,’ Mike helpfully added.

‘My contribution to this conversation,’ Jack said, ‘was to suggest that David was free to do whatever he pleased without family prying, but, as you can see, it fell on entirely deaf ears.’

‘I’ve been going to see my sister,’ David said.

‘Your sister?’ Laura repeated, amazed.

‘I have a sister,’ David said.

‘Why didn’t we ever know?’ Laura asked.

‘She and your mother had a very bad falling out. It was after little David died, and your mother really wasn’t herself for a long time after that.’

‘They didn’t make it up in even all those years?’ Laura asked.

‘No,’ David admitted.

‘It was so bad you couldn’t even tell us we have an aunt? Does she have children?’

‘No, she never married,’ David said. ‘She was a nurse during the war in England and went to Holland with the Canadian forces when it was liberated. When she came home, she went to medical school. She’s an obstetrician and gynaecologist—or was. She’s retired now.’

‘Right here in Vancouver?’ Ben asked.

‘Right here in Vancouver,’ David confirmed. ‘She lives with a woman named Constance Crowley.’

‘Why is that name familiar?’ Jack asked.

‘Crowley?’ Laura repeated. ‘C. CROWLEY GARDENING SERVICE. That extraordinary woman? You remember, don’t you, boys?’

‘That little white-haired woman who used to come with her team of girls to do the spring and fall clean-up?’ Ben asked.