“Ohmygod.” Lu watched Maggie take all of this in—she watched her understand the help Lu needed with the boys, the time she spent on the computer, with the drawing pad. The inordinate amount of cooking for a family with one-quarter gone most of the time. “That’s my very favorite food blog. My mom’s too. We read it all the time! We make all of his recipes! You’re like—you’re a celebrity! I can’t believe it.”

“Sometimes,” said Lu, “I can’t believe it either.”

“Mom!” This was Sebastian now, calling from upstairs. “Mommy! It’s important.”

“What is it?” She couldn’t keep the irritation out of her voice.

“I had a really big poop and the toilet is all clogged!”

Oh, for heaven’s sake, thought Lu. She smiled ruefully at Maggie. “You can’t tell anyone, though, okay? You can’t blow my cover.”

“Wait, but—how did you? How do you—?”

“The longer version I’ll tell you another time,” said Lu. “But the short version is: I just took a chance,” said Lu. “If you want something badly enough, sometimes you just have to take a chance.”

Chapter 39

ANTHONY

“WOULD YOU READ something I wrote?”

This was Anthony, age twenty, home from Dartmouth the winter holiday of his junior year, let into the sanctum of his father’s study, clutching a copy of the story he’d written for his fiction workshop. It was just before five o’clock and the sky had surrendered its color, graying before their eyes. Anthony approached his father with an uncertainty so thick it felt as though it covered him like a cloak.

By way of an answer Leonard gestured to the straight-backed chair in the corner of the room and then, still without talking, made a motion with his arm to indicate that Anthony should move the chair closer. He held his hand out for the story, and Anthony, with a trepidation so great it deserved a different name, a stronger name, handed it over. Maybe it was terror. It felt to him like he was handing over one of his organs, his very soul.

The Uttermost table clock in the corner struck five, and here was Anthony’s mother, knocking softly, carrying the scotch.

“Anthony has brought some writing to show me,” said Leonard significantly, and Dorothy, understanding immediately, departed and returned with a second glass of scotch, this one for Anthony.

Anthony, whose drinking experience at that time was limited to keg beer at the Sigma Alpha Epsilon house and a bottle of shared Pinot Grigio on a date with Lindsay Hendricks at Peter Christian’s in Hanover, accepted the glass somberly and sat holding it while his father read the story. He was far too nervous to sip it. Even smelling it, he felt a little drunk.

Those were the longest fourteen and a half minutes of Anthony’s life. The only sounds in the room were the soft tick of the Uttermost and the light rustling of the printed pages. Anthony took a cautious sip of his scotch, just to have something to do, then another, then a third, trying not to shudder like a child swallowing cough medicine.