A little less than an hour later, Kate looked around the table as the white-gloved waitstaff served a first course of salmon rillettes. Selby had gone to a lot of trouble. The dazzling candlelight of the crystal chandelier made the damask-covered table even more luminous. Lily and Georgina had both been particular about how their tables were laid, but Selby was positively obsessive. There was hardly an inch of space on the surface of the table, it was so filled with china, crystal, silverware, and Christmas greens. Kate fingered the four sterling repoussé forks next to her plate, over a century old, the same pattern as her mother’s own silverware. They were made by a Baltimore company, S. Kirk & Son, America’s oldest silversmiths. She thought of sitting around her mother’s dining room table at Christmas and felt her eyes fill just as Carter, at the head of the table, gently clinked his wineglass and lifted it in a toast.

“To our wonderful friends and family,” he said. “Thank you for coming tonight. It’s good that we can be together to help each other through this sad time.”

Kate felt warmed by his words. It was comforting to be surrounded by old friends, and she was glad Simon hadn’t listened when she suggested they turn around.

“Lovely sentiment, Carter,” Georgina said.

Silence settled heavily as they raised their glasses. Selby’s sons—Bishop, Tristan, and Carter IV—were holding wineglasses filled with soda, while Annabelle twirled a colorful cartoon cup in her hands, and of course Selby had made sure Kate’s wine goblet was filled with her usual soda water. Kate smiled at Selby’s brother, Palmer, who sat across from her. She had always liked him. Although he was two years older than his sister, he’d always been kind to Selby’s friends, never making them feel like annoying little pests, like a lot of older brothers did. He’d lived in London the last sixteen years, working as a senior lecturer at the London School of Economics. She’d met his partner, a stage actor with the Royal Shakespeare Company, on two occasions when she and Simon were in England. Unlike Selby, he had escaped the rigidity of his mother’s ordered and hierarchical world, where appearances mattered above all else. He had seemed content, happy and unguarded, very much at home in his adopted country.

“It’s so good to see you again,” Kate said, smiling at him. “How is James? It’s a shame he couldn’t come.”

“He’s busy. In rehearsal right now for The Tempest. Prospero. Opens in three weeks. He’s either reciting lines or making illegible notes in the three annotated volumes he’s studying.”

“Sounds intense.”

“Extremely. He hardly has time for anything else.”

“Well, I’m sorry to miss him this time. When do you head back?”