“No, no.” Martin tamped down his instinct to bristle. “I mean, just this corner of the country—it’s not anywhere Elisabeth and Katarina come, is it?”

Elisabeth and Katarina, those dark-haired girls he had spent so much time with as a boy, now lived unfathomable lives in the brash, historyless American west. They too had been drawn here, to this continent of new beginnings, fellow children of Burg Lingenfels. Of the von Lingenfels family, only Fritz, a copyright lawyer at an international law firm, remained in Germany.

“No, no, Katarina vacations in Mexico—or the Caribbean.” Marianne waved his question away. “And Elisabeth doesn’t vacation.”

“Well, it’s a long way from Burg Lingenfels.”

“Ha! I should say so.” Marianne laughed. “And you are in New Hampshire still, I understand from Irena—she is in better touch with me than you are! She sends a Christmas card at least.”

“Does she? Irena?” Martin was startled. He tried to imagine his daughter, the inscrutable suburban schoolteacher she had become, writing to Marianne.

“Every year, last year with a picture of her babies—those sweet little things. To think you are a grandfather, Martin!”

Martin shook his head. It was incredible, actually. He was only fifty-two. Irena was a child of his youth. He had been too young, only twenty-four when he had her, and now she was a mother herself—also too young, in his estimation. Fatherhood had slipped between his fingers, and time hiccupped forward. Now here he was a grandparent. Too late! Too late! Grandparenthood taunted him. You can’t go back and be a father now.

“I’m not a very good one, I’m afraid,” Martin said.

“Ach.” Marianne waved this away too. “I’m sure you are.”

Martin said nothing. Sitting here, on this weather-beaten porch, with its brittle railings and the dull pounding of the sea below, he felt a gray bloom of failure. This was why it had been so long since he had last seen Marianne. She was the gardener of this ugly flower. She knew just how to turn its face to the sun.

He was relieved to hear Alice opening the screen door, bearing a tray with Marianne’s good coffeepot (pale blue with tiny white flowers, how familiar it still was), a carton of half-and-half, and two practical white mugs that had replaced the Meissen china of the old days.

“Have we no pitcher for the cream?” Marianne frowned. “This looks not fine.”

“No, ma’am,” Alice murmured. “No pitcher.”

“Ach, well. So it is.” Marianne sighed. “But surely there is a sugar bowl.”

Alice nodded and returned to search for one.

“She is Rwandan,” Marianne asserted when she had left. “Her husband was killed in the civil war there. And her son.”

“My God. How terrible.”

“She is very good. Very honest.”

Martin nodded. Marianne had always been comfortable with such sweeping moral pronouncements.

“You see,” Marianne said, smiling, “I like always to surround myself with widows.”

“I suppose so.” Martin tried to smile back.

“I miss your mother, you know,” Marianne said. “She was not one for a houseful of widows.”