In what felt like no time but in reality was probably fifteen or twenty minutes, Alice was back at the house. She felt as if her body had made the decision to leave Redbone’s and go to Richard’s without her, as if it understood that her brain was too consumed by thoughts that were like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle she was trying to put together, failing to put together, to work out even the simplest of logistics, as if some emergency system had kicked in, taken a quick inventory of options, settled on the least troublesome one. As she climbed the steps leading to the deck, she looked up, saw Richard in the window of his second-floor office. A telephone was cradled between his jaw and his shoulder, and his mouth was moving. Good. He was occupied.

She entered the kitchen. Luz was unloading the dishwasher, listening to her iPod. The music leaking out of her tiny earbud speakers had a salsa-type beat. “Have you seen my mom?” Alice said. When Luz didn’t turn around, continued transferring handfuls of knives and forks and spoons into the silverware drawer, gently shaking her hips, Alice tapped her on the shoulder.

Luz jumped three feet in the air. Hand to heart, she said, “Oh, Alice, you frightened me. You shouldn’t sneak up on people like that.”

Alice apologized, asked her question again.

“Your mom?” Luz said, closing the dishwasher door with a neat kick of her sneakered foot. “Outside somewhere, I think. The garden maybe?”

“The garden,” Alice repeated, then headed there. She walked quickly, past the hedges and the rhododendrons, the vine-covered pergolas hugging the high walls of the house. She turned the corner, and suddenly there she was: Maggie. Maggie was wearing a sleeveless summer dress with polka dots on it and a floppy brimmed hat. A large wicker basket dangled from her wrist. She had shears in her gloved hand, was snipping small white roses from their stalks, beheading them. She was alone, which was what Alice had been hoping for.

As if sensing someone was watching her, Maggie looked up. Seeing Alice, she smiled. “I think I’m going to try floating blossoms in a bowl filled with water. I read about it in Better Homes and Gardens. It sounded pretty. Honey,” she said, holding out the basket, “can you take this for a second? There’s one flower up high, and I want to try and reach it. Or maybe you could since you’re taller.”

Alice stared at her mother. She was struck anew by how much Maggie and Charlie resembled one another: the features, the bodies, the coloring.

The smile fell off Maggie’s face. “What is it? Alice, honey, you’re scaring me. Why do you look like that? What’s wrong?”