“Didn’t you bring Caroline back with you, Auntie?” Anthea asked, and Angie thought, Thank you.

“Caroline is why we took so long,” Miss Zula said. She took a sip from the wineglass her sister had pressed into her hand. Then she sat down and patted her lap. Louie jumped up and settled there with a contented sigh.

“Harriet, your sister decided to go to her bridal retreat, after all,” she said. “So we dropped her off there on the way home.”

“She what?” Harriet squeaked.

Rivera shot Angie a look. “A retreat? Like to a convent?”

“The Benedictine order has a retreat house about eighty miles from here,” Miss Zula said. “She’ll be back in a few days.”

“Days?” Harriet looked like she was about to choke to death on the word.

Miss Maddie said, “It’s a tradition, isn’t that so, Harriet? All y’all went on bridal retreats before your weddings.”

“Well, yes, but not five days before, not with so much to do. And she’ll miss the Jubilee, and what about the bridal shower? What would make her do such a thing?”

“I don’t know, dear,” said Miss Zula, completely absorbed in the massaging of Louie’s ears. “You’ll have to ask her yourself.”

“I would,” said Harriet. “If they had a telephone. You’d think those nuns would have an emergency line at least. I’ll have to cancel the shower. What am I supposed to tell people?”

“I expect Caroline trusts you to handle all that.” Miss Zula gave her a serene smile. “You’ve done this four times before, after all. Exactly the same wedding, for all of you.”

“But this is her wedding, not mine,” Harriet wailed. And then an expression of complete dismay came over her face. “What about her picnic basket and her auction ticket?”

“Don’t you worry about that,” said Miss Maddie. “Neely Ogilvie is next on the list, and if I know her, she’s got a basket together just on the hope one of us would drop dead.”

Kai said, “A time of quiet reflection before a wedding seems to me a very good idea.”

She was pulling books down from shelves and sorting them into piles. John thought again, as he often did, that Kai’s approach to the world was as elemental and clear as water. He wondered about living in Japan, what that would be like; he thought of a quiet room on a mountaintop somewhere. Isolation seemed like a good idea just now, but then that would mean leaving Angie behind, again. He glanced at the phone, and then forced himself to concentrate on what his brother was saying.

“So what do they do all day long on a bridal retreat? I take it the nuns don’t put on a lingerie show.”

Kai said, “Nuns don’t wear underclothing?”

“I have no idea,” Rob said, straight-faced. “In fact, I don’t particularly want to know.”