“It’s hard to believe. How will this affect Hannah and Max, do you think?”

Amelia shrugged. “Mon ami, you know men. They aren’t aware of the undercurrents of people’s feelings beneath their noses. He says nothing is going to change.” She leaned forward. “Hannah thinks that it’s all going to change, and I’m sure she’s right.”

“It can’t change the fact that they’re married.”

“But it can affect their lifestyle, can’t it?” Amelia said.

Grace nodded. It was hard to imagine Zachary here and his wife about to have a baby. “He never sent a cable, didn’t let his father know they were coming?”

“When did he ever let his father know anything about his life, except after the fact?”

“It’s all been going so well for Hannah. What’s going to happen.” Grace’s words were more comment than question.

Amelia raised an eyebrow. “Your guess is as good as mine. Well, I have to run. Mike and I are taking Miriam and Sadie to the Toe River over near Celo. You know where that is, out past Burnsville? Mike has a job there, and Miriam’s bringing a picnic lunch for us.”

Grace nodded.

Miriam was the daughter of Amelia’s deceased husband, Thomas, with an Englishwoman. About a year ago, Miriam and her little daughter, Sadie, had arrived unannounced on their doorstep seeking refuge from an abusive husband. The shock of Thomas’s betrayal and infidelity devastated Amelia, and for many weeks she had rejected both mother and daughter. Then good sense had prevailed, and Amelia placed the blame squarely where it belonged, on Thomas, and she had opened her arms and heart to Miriam and her little girl and garnered to herself a loving daughter and granddaughter, who now lived in a cottage that the ladies had built for them near Bob’s cottage on Cove Road.

Miriam’s ex-husband had managed to trace her to Covington, but in a drunken stupor he had driven his car headlong into the Swannanoa River and ended his life.

Now Amelia stood, smoothed back her hair, and slung her camera bag across her shoulder. “I’m off, then.”

The house was suddenly too quiet, and Grace, who needed to keep busy, trudged up the stairs to her room and began rearranging her closet. She removed turtleneck shirts, sweat-pants, and sweaters, folded and stored them in the drawers from which she’d removed her summer shirts and skirts. She considered getting out the ironing board, but decided instead to hang the summer clothes in the closet, hoping that the wrinkles would smooth themselves.