Dee’s daughter Maude visited for the birthday and dragged Polly and Edmund through marshes and along rainy beaches looking for birds. She gave advice to everyone, and she and Dee quarreled off and on for a week. Maude spent most nights in the city, visiting old friends, and Papa broke up the quarrels by teasing her about her days as a wild child. Variety, he said, was the spice of Maude’s life.

For her birthday on May 29, Polly asked for lobster. Rita joked about it all one morning—“Have the lobster, little girl”—until even Merle asked her to stop. Rita talked about what she’d like for her birthday, in September, and though they probably all dreaded the idea of being together that long they nodded and smiled.

“When is your birthday, E?” asked Dee.

“March,” said Edmund.

Polly had just taken a bite of ice cream, a beautiful Dee concoction with fresh strawberries, and she linked this moment with a kind of brain freeze. She watched, unable to swallow, as ice cream melted in her mouth and she thought over the horror of no one celebrating your birthday, no one knowing. What had they done instead? Dee’s lips opened in clear rage.

“You forgot your child’s birthday?”

“Darling,” said Papa. “Don’t.”

Rita was oblivious, scraping her bowl. Edmund didn’t look sad, didn’t look anything. Dee pulled herself up, swaying, so old and so angry. “Edmund, come with me in the kitchen, and we’ll plan your birthday. A little late, but all the better.”

Polly asked Jane once if Rita realized how much Dee hated her. Jane thought Rita knew, but she wasn’t sure the emotion was hate. Disgust, disdain. Dee loathed Rita for being a bad mother, for not controlling her mind for other people’s sakes.

A week later, for Edmund’s belated celebration, they went up the Sound to an old, beautiful house with a real sand beach, owned by a friend named Mr. Porter. It was being restored—there were men on the roof, men on ladders. Dee planned to have Papa’s retirement party there at the end of the summer, and for Edmund’s birthday, she’d somehow managed to pick a day that Rita planned to spend in the city, meeting her agent and a man from a French gallery.