“Something’s not adding up.” It was only as the words left Alice’s mouth that she realized they were Dream Camilla’s. “I’ve been holding off on this second talk, this second confrontation, because I’ve been looking for evidence. I know it sounds ridiculous, but that’s what I’ve been doing. Trying to prove that there’s weirdness afoot, or rottenness or badness, or whatever name you want to give it. Then I realized that I don’t need evidence. My intuition is my evidence. Something isn’t right. You’re not telling me something. And it’s about you and Richard and your relationship, and I want to know what it is.”

Alice watched Maggie’s face carefully as she spoke. Saw Maggie’s expression change to no expression at all, drawing completely inward, her face turning as blank and rigid as a mask, as if she’d retreated behind it.

When Maggie continued to stare off into space, not saying anything, Alice snapped her fingers a couple times. Said, “Mom.”

Maggie shook her head, like she was shaking off her stupor. Then said, “I didn’t lie to you, you know. In that first conversation, I mean.”

“No, I don’t think you did lie to me. I think you told me the half-truth, and nothing but the half-truth. I want the whole truth now.”

Slowly Maggie pulled off her gloves, then rested the gloves, the basket, and the shears on the ground. She opened her arms, held them out to Alice. Alice shook her head. Maggie regarded her for a moment regretfully, then dropped her arms and sat down on one of the granite benches, crossing her pretty, young-looking legs. She gestured for Alice to sit on the other. When Alice again shook her head, Maggie said, “You really just want to get right down to it, don’t you?”

“Wouldn’t you if you were me?”

“Maybe not. Not if someone who loved me as much as I love you told me to leave it alone.”

Alice laughed. “So for my own good I should stay in the dark? That’s what I’m hearing?”

Not laughing, deadly serious, Maggie said, “Exactly. Sometimes lies are necessary.”

“Like when?”

“Like when the truth is sure to cause pain. Alice, I’m trying to protect you here.”

Alice stared at her mother, at this woman she’d known all her life and never really known at all. “I don’t want your protection,” she said. “Tell me.”

Maggie turned away from her, then turned back. There was something in her eyes—a wild look, maybe even a desperate one. “Why are you so fixated on the past anyway?”

“You mean the truth?”

“No, I mean the past. Why do you make such a fetish of it? You can’t change it or undo it. It’s dead and buried. So why go grave digging?”

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”