"I try not to drown more than once a week."
Miranda invited them in. She arranged the flowers in a vase and placed it on the sunporch. "I love wildflowers," she said. "But I should be the one bringing flowers. And burnt offerings." She put her hands on her hips and tapped her foot, staring at the little boy, who had one small arm wrapped around his father's calf. "Cookies," she said.
She left them, and Kit watched her go, trying to ignore her tight, quick, sexy walk. When she returned, she was carrying a plate of cookies in one hand and the pants and sweater he'd lent her the day before in the other.
"This is the only tribute I have to pay at the moment," she said.
They sat on the wicker furniture in the sunporch and watched Henry eat cookies.
"He's two," Kit said. "His mother . . ."
Miranda was suddenly alert. His mother was . . . institutionalized? Dead? She felt a confession coming, a story, a tale of misery transcended . . .
"His mother is in Africa doing research for two months. It wouldn't have been safe to take him. She's an epidemiologist."
The child sat down heavily on the floor, then popped up and spun around, his arms out, his fingers splayed.
"We're divorced," Kit added.
She saw him blush. Or was she the one who blushed?
"So I've got him all to myself for a bit, don't I, little guy?" Kit continued quickly. "With a little help from Aunt Charlotte and her indomitable housekeeper, Hilda. Who might as well be named Mrs. Danvers. Henry, what does Hilda say?"
"'No, no, no,'" said Henry, shaking his finger.
He then ran from one end of the room to the other and came to a sudden stop in front of where Miranda sat.
He climbed into her lap and held a soggy, ragged remnant of a cookie up to her mouth.
Miranda felt the cookie on her lips, like damp, sweet sand. An oatmeal cookie. When they were children, they called oatmeal cookies "Josie cookies." She could not remember why. She looked at the big pale gray eyes of the child. His mouth was crusted with cookie detritus. His nails, dug into the cookie, seemed no bigger than five little kernels of corn. She nibbled at the cookie and saw his face light up and held him, suddenly, close to her breast.
"Thank you," she said softly. "Thank you, little Henry."
When Kit was strapping Henry into his car seat, he was aware of Miranda behind him. He turned and saw her, those remarkable eyes aimed right at him.
"I owe you," she said.
He shook his head, all the time watching her watch him. She took his hand. He heard himself suck in his breath, stirred, and wondered if she heard it, too. She was far too old for him, though he suddenly could not tell how old that actually was. Nor, he realized, did he care. He had fished her out of the sea. He could still feel the weight of her wet body. He quickly turned back to Henry. There was something depraved about even thinking of such things in front of one's son. And yet one did. The sky had cleared overnight, and the late-summer sunlight was deep and slanted and warm. She was wearing some kind of scent. Henry was kicking his feet against the car seat. Bing bang, bing bang.
"You have paid your debt with cookies," he said.
"No, no. Here's what I'll do," she said. "I'll take you out to dinner."
Her voice was low and straightforward. She was clearly used to people doing what she told them to do. He wanted to do what she wanted him to do.
Henry was singing now. Something from a cartoon show. Kit said, "Henry, say goodbye to Miranda."
An obliging child, Henry waved his small hand. He called her Randa, and she smiled and waved back.
"Tomorrow at seven," she said to Kit. "Pick me up here."
He nodded, watching her walk back toward the dreary little house.
"And," she added, turning around and flashing her smile, "make sure to bring your friend."
8
The Weissmanns sat, all three together, in the little living room. It was the cocktail hour, a sacred ritual held over from the days of Joseph.
"Look at the size of this baby," Betty said proudly, holding up an enormous vessel, a glass bottle of vodka the size of a Kentucky jug. "Costco is a destitute widow's dream."
"You spent over a thousand dollars there," Annie said. They all glanced at a newly installed hearth in which a ventless gas fire danced merrily.
"I miss the fireplace ladies," Miranda said.
"We are the fireplace ladies now," said Betty with a brave smile she had noticed in the mirror that morning and decided to keep.
Annie got up to set the table.
"Don't forget. Set an extra place," Miranda said. "Two places."