All the things a person couldn’t do followed—but he tried to stay focused on those first lines, by which he hoped to keep his family afloat. He could sell off some of his stock as sacramental wine. He could press and sell grape juice, which meant he’d be buying at least some grapes, which meant a few vineyards could keep going. Some vineyards planned to sell grapes to households wanting to make their legal allotment of wine; he had ideas about concentrating the juice, or possibly dehydrating it. Jasper was looking into making tartaric acid cheaply from the grape skins, which could be sold to manufacturers of baking powder.

The kitchen door opened, pushed by the hip of a girl carrying a platter. Not Charlie but his dogs rushed past her legs, dashing between and around a thicket of other legs. Someone squealed. “Olive!” he called sharply. “Oscar! Sit.”

They sat: as obedient, despite their size and general untidiness, as he’d once been. Where was Charlie? He turned as the kitchen door opened again, but this time Chloe came through, pointing at the clock—past eight, he saw—and rounding up volunteers to finish clearing the platters of turkey and ham and potatoes. Behind her, his mother was supervising the final touches to the bowls of trifle and the bourbon-soaked cake, the pies and the floating island.

“I lost track of him,” he said, when Chloe came over to ask if he’d seen Charlie. “But I think he’s somewhere with Alice.” Her eyes, which when he let himself really see them were still, after eighteen years and all that had happened, capable of making him feel like he’d toppled slowly into cool water, closed briefly and then fixed on his.

“We should . . .” she said.

“I know,” he said. “I know.”

“But I don’t think sending him off to Philadelphia is the answer either. I wish Henrietta hadn’t interfered like that.”

“He won’t go to Philadelphia,” Didier said.

Her eyes, again. “How do you know?”

He felt calmer now. Quite calm. “I just do,” he said. “That’s not going to work out for him.” Then he moved to help his mother, who was bringing from the kitchen a giant glass bowl filled with custard and cake and jam. The bowl, faceted and silver-rimmed, hid her entire chest, and for just a minute her head seemed to float above a glass bosom.