“That’s not it!” Hannah said, reacting immediately. But then, after she thought about it for a moment, she backtracked. “You could be right, but I’m not willing to admit that quite yet. Why don’t you go get some food before it’s all gone? I’ll save your place for you.”

After Mike had gone off to the food tables, Hannah thought about what he’d said. Her dad has been bead for almost four years now, and maybe it was time for her mother to look for someone new. The problem was that whenever Hannah thought about another man in her mother’s life, it seemed disloyal to her father’s memory. She realized that her attitude wasn’t fair, or perhaps not even rational, but that didn’t change the way she felt about it.

Rather than dwell on this unhappy problem for any longer, Hannah gazed around the room while she waited for Mike to come back. Norman was off snapping pictures, the students from the Jordan High Jazz Ensemble were setting up their music stands and chairs for an interlude of music during dessert, and Brandi’s chair was still vacant. Hannah glanced over at Babs and Shirley’s table. Babs wasn’t in her chair and neither was Shirley. The whole Dubinski family seemed to be missing.

Lonnie Murphy caught Hannah’s eye and waved. As Hannah waved back, she noticed that Lonnie was sitting next to an empty chair. Was Michelle still in the ladies’ room with Brandi, asking her about her showgirl career, while Martin was off somewhere talking to his mother? Or was Babs in the ladies’ room with Brandi, grilling her about how she came to marry Martin, while the man in question was off with Shirley, trying to explain how he had spent so much money on Brandi? There were just too many possibilities, and Hannah gave up. The only thing she could be sure of was that Martin wasn’t in the ladies’ room. If he’d followed Michelle, his ex-wife, his mother, or his new wife in there, Hannah would be hearing one heck of a commotion.

“Great job on the pâté,” Mike said, sliding into his chair. “You made it just the way my sister does.”

Hannah was about to say that there was no way anyone could mess up such simple recipe, but this time she remembered her mother’s warning. “Thank you,” she said, smiling up at him. Then she turned to glance at Delores to see if her mother-daughter radar was working and she somehow knew her eldest daughter had taken her advice. But Delores seemed oblivious to anything anyone else was doing or saying, because she was too busy smiling up at Winthrop.

Was it a sign of neurosis when a grown woman felt the urge to mother her mother? Hannah pondered that for a moment as she watched her mother put her hand on Winthrop’s arm and give him a little pat. What did that mean? Was Delores being casually affectionate, or was Hannah’s mother actually falling for the lure of tailored clothes, a title, and a country manor with hedgerows and primroses an ocean away from home?