“Jump higher,” he said, corkscrew in a cocked hand, at the end of a strong, long arm, just like Connie said he’d held a life preserver high above another head. He could have knocked Emily to the ground like a feather. Polly wondered how he dared to breathe. She shouldn’t think he should have saved Ariel, but she did think it. He should have made sure she was wearing her preserver. He should have to see Ariel now.

Emily saw Polly and stopped hopping. Graham handed Emily the corkscrew and gave Polly as pure a look of hatred as she’d ever seen. Blink and miss it, but it happened. She wanted to kill him. She wouldn’t, but it was a pure, honest desire.

Polly topped Ned’s lapin à la moutarde, a bullet on Maude’s list, with some fresh tarragon and served it with new potatoes and the first green beans. The children ate without irony or comment. Polly made a plum cake with last year’s frozen Mount Royals, another Dee recipe. Everything was Dee, for Maude, at the beginning and end.

Maude and Jane were still arguing about the guest list, though it was silly to bother: They’d bought four extra pork shoulders, doubled the sides, chilled another case of Champagne.

“But I won’t see these people again,” said Maude. “Whether I like them is moot.”

“How can you say that?” asked Jane. “Has there been some diagnosis?”

“I know,” said Maude. “I just know.”

“We’ll see you in New York in October, for Papa’s tribute.” A big shindig on the seventy-fifth anniversary of Myths and Variations, his seminal book on myth and archaeology and how the two didn’t always coexist comfortably. They were all going, and Polly intended to walk half the blocks of the city and try four restaurants a day.

“Yes,” said Maude, but she didn’t seem sure. “But I can’t just sit around in the meantime, counting on it. We should go see Harry’s project.”

“When?” said Polly, opening one eye. She was in a lawn chair, daydreaming.

Now, apparently. Maude was intent on a trip to the Poor Farm on Harvat’s Flats. For the view and to change the day’s mood, and to support her poor grandchild, she said. Perhaps they’d see a bird.

It was only eight in the evening on one of the longest days of their lives.

“We’ll watch the fireworks,” said Merle. “All good.”