No point in following up on that one. Sarah was one of the sturdiest people Jane had ever met, but she was constantly complaining about her health to prove the strength of her character. She was a farm girl from Upstate New York who’d gone to Albany to work as a secretary and ended up marrying the lawyer she worked for. Thomas’s father had died when he was in his late fifties, leaving Sarah with a considerable sum of money and an all-consuming martyr complex. No one knew exactly how much she’d inherited or what she’d done with it, but she frequently found ways of slipping the words “will” and “trusts” into her self-pitying conversations. Thomas was devoted to her, and not for the money. He and Beth had inherited their own substantial sums when their father died. She shuddered to think what kind of terrorist organizations Beth had given her money to. As for Thomas, he’d shown uncharacteristic practicality by investing it in a variety of blue chip stocks and, shortly after they were married—against her wishes—a computer company called Microsoft.

“Where’s Gerald?” she asked.

“In the kitchen with the caterers. He took charge of everything the minute they showed up since you weren’t home and no one had left instructions for me on how to contact you in case of an emergency.”

“Gerald’s wonderful with organizing caterers and dinner parties.”

“Oh, my, yes.” Sarah had her head bowed and was fumbling with a chain holding her beaded cardigan on her shoulders. “It’s unusual for a boy to be so interested in cooking.”

More assaults on the masculinity of a six-year-old. Jane went back to shuffling through the same four pieces of mail she’d been playing with for the past five minutes, faster now than before. “Don’t engage” had been Berman’s advice. When it came to Sarah, Jane didn’t hold a thing back from Berman; if anything, she might have embellished a few details, not to alter the facts, but to emphasize them.

“And Thomas? Is he upstairs?”

“He’s out jogging.”

Jane looked up at her mother-in-law. “Jogging? I don’t think so.”

“He started two weeks ago! You didn’t know that? You didn’t know your husband’s been jogging every day?”

“I meant in this humidity,” Jane said. It didn’t seem very likely that Thomas had suddenly started exercising, but if so, it was something she should have noticed or at least been told about. Jane had another mantra for dealing with Sarah, a complement to “Don’t Engage,” which she’d thought up herself: “Toss Her A Bone.” “Thank you for looking after Gerald,” she said. “You’re a big help. You should make that doctor’s appointment soon since you’re only here another four weeks.”

“Eight.”

“Well. Even so.”