It was Saturday afternoon, they’d been at the farmer’s market for twenty minutes, and thus far Caroline had done nothing but give money to animal causes and make a series of mercy buys. She was on a first-name basis with most of the farmers, bakers, and craftspeople who had tables set up under the yellow and white striped canopy. As she led Jane through the tables, she greeted each one, chatted briefly, and then pulled out her wallet and made a purchase. The pies and cookies and limp lettuce and brown cauliflower and the little jar of herbal salve were all stowed in the woven straw backpack with the leather straps Caroline lugged from vendor to vendor. The backpack, like everything else at the Wade family estate, had been purchased by Nana someone or other and used by generations of Wades for the same purpose. Virtually every dish towel on the estate, every coat hanger, every threadbare chenille bedspread had been fetishized.

As they were driving from the estate to this market—the tent was set up in a field near the center of a surprisingly bucolic New Hampshire town—Caroline had stressed the importance of supporting the farmers and craftspeople, keeping the local economy strong and healthy, helping to combat the invasion of Wal-Mart and similar chains. Jane agreed with the whole concept on a political level and was ready to shop herself into bankruptcy, but once they arrived and she got a good look at the bruised, insect-infested vegetables, the pale uninspired lumps of bread, and the hideous pencil holders made from soup cans—to select only one example of the crafts, and not the worst one—she’d begun to wonder if it might not make sense to let survival of the fittest take its course; let the talented gardeners and whatever else thrive while the others got into more suitable fields and allowed their fantasies to die dignified natural deaths. It was probably unspeakably churlish to suggest that not everyone should be encouraged to live their dreams. The generous thing to do was to judge people on their ambitions rather than their achievements. Which was all very nice, but when it got down to having to eat someone else’s ambitions, Jane would rather bow out.

Jane watched as Caroline chatted with a round, doughy baker who bore an uncanny resemblance to his undercooked loaves. Surely Caroline’s attitude toward all of this meant that she was a better person than Jane was or ever would be. As if Jane needed one more example of Caroline’s moral superiority. She could hear Caroline complimenting the young man on a batch of brownies she’d bought from him the weekend before—and had probably tossed into a Goodwill bin on the drive home.