The day she returned to Boston (and she hadn’t been at Mingulay a week before she came down with the unidentified ailment), she smiled when she kissed her sons goodbye, but it was a forced uncertain smile, and she seemed to drink in their faces with her glance, as if—Nathaniel was alarmed by this thought—she might not see them again for a long time. She turned abruptly, taking the arm Cyrus offered to help her into the carriage; but then she held still, one foot on the running board, the other on the ground, as if she were pausing to make sure she had not forgotten something. Or was she too weak to mount into the seat? “Liza, I still think I should go with you, at least as far as the train station,” Nathaniel heard his father say, with the tenderness he showed no one but her (as if his allotment of it was so meager he could expend it on no more than one person). She shook her head, the movement followed by a quick squaring of her back and shoulders, like a soldier snapping to attention; then she hiked her skirt with a single, violent tug and climbed into the seat. Her gloved hands were clasped tightly in her lap, and the tilt of her chin reminded Nathaniel, at first glance, of a photograph he’d seen of the vice president’s beautiful and arrogant daughter, Alice. But, on second glance, he realized that his mother’s posture did not communicate haughtiness but rather a kind of martial resolve. “All right, Tom,” she said to Dailey. He clicked his tongue and gave the reins a shake, and she did not once look back toward her husband and sons, as the matched horses trotted off down the drive.

“Nat’s right, it doesn’t have anything to do with Mother,” said Eliot. “Why would he tell us to get lost for a summer if she was that sick? Maybe it’s some big business deal he’s working on.” He paused and looked puzzled by his own comment. “But then, why would he tell us to get lost if it was a business deal? Could be there’s another strike in the works. Hey! I’ll bet that’s what’s been eating him. I heard Moira and Mrs. Carter in the kitchen a while back, whispering something about a strike. Moira’s sweet on one of those Irish quarrymen and she probably got wind of it from him. Sure. Maybe the old man’s gone off to get some Pinkertons so he won’t have to face the strikers all alone, like the last time. He broke ’em, but it might not be so easy if there’s a next time. So maybe he doesn’t want us around if things blow up.”