He walked into my house without knocking. I had not been able or willing to even answer my front door. I was so out of sorts and thought so poorly of myself after George died. I felt responsible for that, I guess (the way we poor WASPs will). Until Tad’s helpful revision, Saint Sebastian had always somehow been my idea of a life, a search for further sharper arrows! Yikes, but it’s true. So, actually saying “Knock knock,” into my kitchen walks this chunky, agreeable young man with high color, long blondish-red hair, a blue Oxford-cloth buttondown, and chinos whose knees proved he’d been down on all fours checking some ancient building’s footings (not that I would’ve used that term back then). From his alligator belt, a jingling eight-inch key ring. He wore Topsiders, at least they had the outline of Topsiders, but they seemed created by Mr. Jackson Pollock, so paint-and-plaster-swirled were they. In one hand, he held a little note that I myself had scribbled to him after some recent party. I’d mailed it six days prior to George’s being found in his fishing boat. It was a thank-you note for something or other, a joking little teasing little letter I’d jotted, nothing really.

“You can write, Mary Ellen,” so Tad said. “You slipped up and showed us that. This thing had us all doubled over, laughing. And it cracked us up three hours prior to drink time. I don’t know if you understand what a rare and negotiable skill writing simply and persuasively is! No? I thought not. A skill useful for my purposes, of course. But now you’ve tipped your hand, you simply have to come on board. You owe it to the rest of us. I’m going to have to hold you to your word. You are a person of your word, aren’t you, Mary Ellen Broadfield?” I had not the foggiest idea what young Tad Worth was talking about. I expressed this aloud.