“Miss Louisa,” Rob said. “There aren’t many pictures of her around that I’m aware of. My grandmother used to say she was as sour as June apples. Have you heard much about Miss Louisa?”

“I had an interesting conversation with Sister Ellen Mary at the rectory,” Angie said. “But we haven’t had much luck getting Miss Zula to talk about her. What’s your take on her, clinical depression or borderline personality or just plain mean?”

“All three, probably,” said Rob. “If you get a chance, ask my mother while she’s here. Lucy has some Miss Louisa stories.”

Angie shouldn’t be surprised to hear that Lucy was coming; the wedding hadn’t been canceled yet, after all. She said, “When do you expect your mother?”

“Friday morning.”

There was a bit of an awkward silence in which they both must be thinking the same thing. Rob must know about his brother’s plans—about his change of plans—but he could no more bring up the subject than she could. Angie studied the photo in front of her, afraid that if she opened her mouth, words she could not take back would spill out. Then she remembered another photo, one she had shown to almost everyone who came into the office. She pulled it out of a drawer.

She said, “I’ve shown this to five people and every one of them has given me different names.”

This was a black-and-white photo, too, but the contrasts were sharp and true. On the back someone had written 1947 in a slanted, wavering hand. There were three people in the picture: a tall black man wearing an overcoat and a fedora standing behind two women, one in her late twenties and white, the other an elderly black woman with thin white hair and the kind of large, even white teeth that Angie recognized from the glass on her grandfather’s bedside table. Both women were dressed for church or some other formal occasion, and the photo had been taken on a porch.