The feeding of Mrs. Thorpe takes some time, and Annie and Margaret retire to the kitchen, where at least there’s a range to keep the air warm. I occupy this hour by telling her a little about me, about how I met her grandson, what a dear fellow he is, how the king of England married us, how I’ve got a bun in the oven already, her great-grandchild. I leave out the part about Colditz, not because I don’t want to upset her—she doesn’t understand a word I’m saying—but because I don’t want to upset myself. It seems to me that this is a moment for fairy tales, for a story that ends well, for a fiction you know is a fiction that comforts you anyway.

When the spoon scrapes a final time against the bowl, and the lady deigns to accept this offering, I wipe her mouth carefully with the napkin, settle her comfortably on her pillows, and ask if there will be anything else, Mrs. Thorpe.

“Johann,” she says clearly.

I beg her pardon.

“Dear boy. Hair like his mama.”

(Understand, if you please, that she speaks in a toothless, whistling lisp, so I may not be translating precisely.)

“Ah. Yes. They were both blond, weren’t they?”

“But she was mad, poor thing. What could I do?” She looks at me earnestly, like a moment of clarity has come upon her and she wants to know this thing, she really wants to know what she could have done, other than what she did.

“Buried her properly, perhaps.”

“I couldn’t let the children see her, not the state she was in.”

“I’m sure she forgives you,” I said, not that I had any such confidence. On the other hand, from the look of things, Mrs. Thorpe would be discovering the limits of her daughter-in-law’s forgiveness firsthand, before long.

Mrs. Thorpe claws a little at the edge of the sheets. “I had no choice. But he understood. He’s a good boy. A good son.”

“Do you mean Wilfred?”

Her eyes make little spasms of effort, remembering. She nods and says, “Wilfie,” and then the words fall into babbling again. I give the blankets a final pat and rise from my chair, bid her good afternoon, tell her Annie will be back soon with her tea. And indeed, when I descend the stairs and find the kitchen, the kettle’s whistling on the top of the range, and Annie’s spooning leaves into a blue-and-white teapot. Margaret sits at the table before a dozen or so letters, arranged in orderly rows. A cigarette smokes away in the ashtray at her elbow. She makes no sign of noticing my arrival. I carry the bowl and spoon to the sink and wash them, dry them, set them in the cupboard. Through the window, I spy a patch of blue sky, a gleam of sunshine on the wet grass. I sit down at the table and Annie sets a cup of tea before me. When I reach for one of the letters, the nearest, Margaret snaps—not looking up—Don’t touch!