Maggie shook her head. “This is what I know: Aunt Wren has dragged her feet on this project. She’s finishing it in the nick of time. It was a hard thing for her to create, to address personally and publicly. Putting the exhibition together…” She briefly closed her eyes, remembering Wren that night in the studio, weary yet resolute. “For her, it was a necessary hell.”

A tense moment passed, filled only with the dogged ticking of the mantel clock.

Then Mom crumpled. “He was my dad, Maggie. I can’t—I just can’t believe it. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t.” She dragged up her gaze and, through tears, stared at Maggie imploringly. “I don’t think you understand how this show is going to change everything—how it’s going to rewrite my entire life.”

“Oh, Mom.” Maggie took her hand and squeezed it. “I do know. Last year, I listened to testimony after testimony on six guys’ behalf. I couldn’t discredit what their families and friends had to say about them. People do good things, wonderful things in their lives. Sometimes they screw up. Terribly. And sometimes their bad behavior becomes a sick habit. But please,” she exhaled. “Please keep in mind: Exonerating Gramps means you’re accusing Wren. It’s not fair to her. I know how that feels, doing the right thing by exposing a wrong, then getting labeled a liar. It feels shitty.”

“People do lie, Margaret. You didn’t. But many do.”

Many? No. Not in such situations. Maggie couldn’t believe that—wouldn’t even change many to some. There was little to gain by lying. Society, with all its myths and perversions and double standards, made sure of that. She prodded her temples. “Wren doesn’t want to lose you. Are you willing to lose her?”

Mom touched Maggie’s head and rose to her feet, slowly, staggeringly. “I’m sorry, honey.”

After she left, Maggie, exhausted and glum, stayed on the floor, her head propped in a hand. She opened an album and dispiritedly flipped through the photos, again passing the Thanksgiving snapshot. She paused to study it before continuing.

A dull awareness stirred. Something in these pictures seemed … off.

More attentively, she plodded through the rest of the photographs. By the end of the album, her inkling had turned into a fully formed thought. She returned to the beginning of the album and went through the photographs again. Then, heart racing, she seized the leather-covered album and pored over its contents.

She slapped it shut and stared straight ahead.

“Shit,” she whispered. Why had she never realized this before?

17