“We’ll pretend the milk is Scotch,” said Andrew. He raised the goblet. “Here’s to itself!” he cried, and swallowed a great gulp. The milk trickled down his chin. He laughed and she joined his laughter. “I look foul, don’t I?” he said. He jumped up, a gnomelike figure out of a fairy tale. He snatched a linen towel from a rack and wiped his entire face, peering out at her. The cake was rich and delicious. “We can eat all of it,” he said.

He wiped up the icing on the plate with his little fingers. “I only like cake,” he said gravely. Then, in the same tone of voice, “I know your father. I remember him. He’s a frightful drunk,” this last observation in a voice not quite his own, a stolen adult judgment.

Oh, she remembered her father too. She was always remembering him. Life had gone along quietly at Uncle Greg’s for several years, then one night when she was around eleven, there had been a flash of light as her bedroom door had opened and closed.

Tony, smelling of liquor and tobacco, had come to sit on her bed. She’d sat straight up from sleep to full waking. He held her hand. He told her things were going to be different. Soon, he would be coming to take her away with him. Would she like to live in the Canary Islands? He’d heard of a fine boarding school in Switzerland. They would have splendid parties in Paris. Everything was possible. He’d kissed her good-by. The door had opened, then it was dark again. In the morning, he was gone. Uncle Greg was agitated all day. No, no, he didn’t know when Tony was coming back; it had been an unexpected visit after all that time. She wandered around the old house all day, unable to eat, dizzy with hunger. The Canary Islands…

“He’s not a frightful drunk,” Annie said. “He just drinks.”

“My father, known as Jimmy by some people, was his best friend,” Andrew said gently, as though he understood he’d wounded her. “They often got drunk together.”

“I got married yesterday,” Annie said impulsively. “And just before I came here, I saw my—husband—off to New York.”

“You got to play the cards the way they falls,” Andrew said. “That’s what my father says.”

He cut them two more slices of cake. “There’s one good thing. When they all go away, I can eat what I want.”

“Where do you go to school?”