“So you met him in Los Angeles, then?”

I am either going to tell my new friend the truth or I’ll have to concoct a mountain of lies that I will forever have to remember. The truth will probably come out eventually, won’t it? Maybe it makes sense to watch what it’s like for someone to hear what I’ve done. Then I’ll know if mine is a story that other people can listen to and not judge me a fool after hearing it. The only other option is to fib.

I glance down at Kat, who at this same moment looks up at me. Kat is aware enough of the truth. I don’t want to lie in front of this little girl who is just beginning to trust me. I want Kat’s trust more than I want Libby’s friendship, and I know I always will. I turn my attention back to Libby as I set the tin on the countertop.

“I didn’t meet Martin in Los Angeles. I met him here in San Francisco a month ago. At the ferry terminal.”

“You met him a month ago?” Libby echoes, her eyes wide.

“And then a few minutes after I met him, I went to the courthouse and married him.”

For a second Libby says nothing.

“Did he make you do this?” she asks a moment later, with obvious alarm.

“No. He didn’t make me, he asked me. In a letter, a few weeks before. And I said yes.”

“But . . . but you had never met him!”

“No. Not in person.”

“Good gracious! Why would you do that?”

The kettle starts to whistle and I turn off the flame. As I make the tea and then carry it to the little table, I tell her the barest minimum about having immigrated to America. I tell her about the horrible job and tenement in New York, and that I had seen Martin’s advertisement and had been very keen on having a new life and a child, because doctors in Belfast had told me I’d never have children of my own. As we begin to sip from our cups and share the little cakes with the children, I tell Libby that Martin has his own list of woes, with a tragic upbringing, in-laws who did not approve of him, and a sick wife whose wasting disease had stolen her from him and left him a widower with a five-year-old daughter.

“One of my brothers was already here in America when I came. Mason had written me that there were jobs in New York. But I had only been in Manhattan for four months when Mason fell in love with a woman from Montreal, and he moved to Canada to marry her. I thought maybe he would ask me to come with him, so that maybe I could rent a little corner of his home with his new wife, but he didn’t ask. I had to find my own place. It wasn’t the best situation. It was awful. And then one day, I read Martin’s advertisement. I answered it.”