Inevitably, though, he’d had to confess the truth to his parents: that Chloe’s divorce was still hypothetical, and that Charles, although his biological son—he could still feel the depth of his blush when he’d said this—was legally Edward Hazelius’s son. It took years, and all his father’s considerable resources, to work through the legal details. A judge in Pennsylvania had facilitated the divorce, which fortunately Edward by then also wanted. Several lawyers in New York, and another judge, had worked to marry them quietly and arrange his legal adoption of Charlie. So much time, so much money, so many favors granted—and still, he and Chloe had to invent a past for her suspended on a few unhelpful points. They mentioned her dead father and her elderly mother while erasing other relatives; invented a party where they’d supposedly met; and swore, as if this were part of their marriage vows, never to mention her first son, Lawrence. Only his parents knew he existed. Not until his own son began to walk and speak did Didier begin to understand what they’d done in leaving him.

“Edward will let me go,” Chloe had told him on the bench beneath the copper beech. Weeping, weeping. “But only if I leave Lawrence. ‘You go,’ he said. ‘He stays. For good. You don’t see him, you don’t write him, you don’t ask for news of him. You give him up.’ ”

“What kind of a person—” Didier had asked, holding her.

“I think his father’s behind it,” she said. Edward’s father, his employer. “He was always against me. He tried to keep us from getting married, he threatened to cut Edward off when we did—now I’m just behaving as he always thought I would.”

Not all those scenes moved through Didier’s mind at the open house—but some did, especially after he sent Charlie to the kitchen only to have him disappear, and as he began to suspect where Charlie was, and with whom. He forced himself to move through the rooms, briefly joining different conversations; easy enough, since everyone had read the same newspaper article, clarifying exactly what would be legal after midnight on January 16th. You may drink intoxicating liquor in your own home or in the home of a friend when you are a bona fide guest. You may buy intoxicating liquor on a bona fide medical prescription of a doctor. A pint can be bought every ten days. You may keep liquor in any storage room or club locker, provided the storage place is for the exclusive use of yourself, family, or bona fide friends. You may manufacture, sell or transport liquor for non-beverage or sacramental purposes provided you obtain a Government permit.