He sat down again. “Can we call a truce before we get started?”

“I didn’t know we were at war.”

John forced himself to take a few deep breaths. “Of course not. Go ahead with your questions.”

She said, “Does Miss Zula know that you and I used to date?”

He had expected something very different, and at first could hardly make sense of the question.

“Date?”

“Date, yes. You do remember.”

“Of course I remember. I’m just not sure I’d use that word. I don’t know how she would know. I never mentioned it to her. Why?”

Angie’s mouth pursed itself. “And Caroline Rose? Have you mentioned it to her?”

John held on to her gaze, though it cost him a great deal. “I haven’t raised the subject yet.”

“Why not?”

John heard the screen door open behind him. Angie’s face told him that it wasn’t Rob standing there.

“Let me introduce you to my sister-in-law,” John said. “I may have been slow to bring Caroline up to date, but there’s no keeping secrets from Kai.”

The house was just exactly what Angie expected. Solid old furniture, simple, elegant, comfortable. Not a pile of paper in sight, or a book out of place. A few small watercolors, an antique map in a gilded frame, a sampler: Jane Ogilvie 1825. No photos, not of his parents or grandparents or anyone else. Nor would she find them anywhere else in the house.

When she took him home to Hoboken the first time, John had spent a lot of time going over what Tommy Apples liked to call the family shrine, a whole wall full of photographs, some more than a hundred years old. John had been sincerely interested in Angie’s family, but could not be bothered with the artifacts of his own.

This comfortable, well-used, strictly kept house was much like an expensive hotel room. It was one of the things that she had only begun to understand about John, this way he went about constructing a world for himself free of conflict and unpleasant memories, and it was immediately familiar.

On the other hand, Rob’s wife took her by surprise. Kai Watanabe looked like a teenage boy’s geisha fantasy, but presented herself like the theoretical mathematician she was. Small and slender with a long veil of shining black hair, she came at Angie so directly and with so much undisguised curiosity that only two choices presented themselves: to be affronted or charmed. The fact that Kai’s smile was as honest and unassuming as her gaze made the choice easier.

On the screened rear porch, Angie stood at the old oak table that had been set for a late breakfast and tried to sound regretful.

“I’ve eaten, but thank you.”

“Sit,” said John, and pointed at a chair.

“How rude,” said Rob.

“Me?” said John and Angie together.