She put away three plates and two glasses, decided it would be best to let them cool off for another hour or so, and headed to the refrigerator to check out the leftovers. As she was reaching for a plastic container of shrimp, she noticed that there was only a spoonful of Thomas’s chocolate mousse concoction left in a bowl that had been half full two hours ago. That meant that Gerald had crept downstairs at some point and furtively gorged on it.

She took out a Tupperware container and sat at the kitchen table, poking through the broccoli and linguini until she found a plump shrimp. Gerald had always been heavy—he had Thomas’s body type—but she hadn’t given his weight much thought until the past year or so, when she started to worry about it. She didn’t want to mention it and draw attention to what was a potentially explosive issue, not that all issues weren’t potentially explosive where Gerald was concerned. On the other hand, it seemed irresponsible to turn a blind eye to what was a legitimate health concern. Dear old (young, really, and that might be part of the trouble) Dr. Garitty was evasive on this subject and had looked at Jane with disapproval the one time she’d mentioned it. As for talking about it with her own shrink, that was another lost cause. Dr. Berman was immense. In one session, she’d made a passing reference to Thomas’s incipient potbelly and found herself blushing. To make matters more uncomfortable, she’d apologized to Berman.

As she was hoisting another dripping shrimp to her mouth, Thomas walked in the back door, fresh from a visit with his mother in the carriage house. He had on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, both of which looked limp. Thomas himself looked a little limp, his light hair stuck to his wide forehead in strands. She felt a stab of almost unbearable poignancy, seeing him look so disheveled and overheated, the T-shirt stuck to his stomach with sweat. She had no illusions that she looked her best in this weather. Maybe people would finally become outraged over global warming when they realized how adversely it affects your appearance.

“How’s Sarah?” she asked, popping the shrimp into her mouth.

Thomas shrugged and went to the refrigerator. “She seems fine. Cranky, but that’s the norm.” The kitchen was suddenly bright from the refrigerator bulb.

From time to time, Thomas offered Jane these mild criticisms of his mother, mostly as a way to appease her and show her that his allegiance was to his wife. One day, she’d love to hook him up to a lie detector and ask him which one of them he’d save first from a burning building. She heard his knees crack as he squatted down to forage. After a moment, he asked, “Any of that mousse left?”

“Gerald finished it off,” Jane said.