"The dishes, too," the old woman said, tapping her fork on the dessert plate, which was exquisite, Betty noticed. But really, Betty had her own chairs and plates. She didn't need this woman's household goods. And where would she keep them, anyway? So little room in the cottage as it was. And of course, even auctioned, these pieces would go for a pretty penny. She began thinking what a lovely phrase that was, "pretty penny," only vaguely aware of the aunt continuing her catalogue: "Forks, knives, spoons . . . the whole shebang. Get out your checkbooks, ladies."
Roberts joined the tea party toward the end. It was not the first time the Weissmanns had seen him since Palm Springs, but it was unexpected to see him in the big house on Beachside Avenue.
"All this time I didn't realize you knew the Maybanks," Betty said, thinking back to what now looked, in retrospect, like coldness to Kit.
"Roberts is very discreet," Aunt Charlotte said. "He handles all my affairs."
"Not quite all, unfortunately," said Roberts.
"He'll be the one auctioning off those chairs, won't you, dear?"
"I sincerely hope not, Charlotte."
Miranda sat on the other wing chair, Henry curled on her lap. She rested her cheek on his head and breathed him in. She had been feeling so ragged, so disoriented, for so long, a woman without a country, and now she was bankrupt as well, but what did any of it matter? Here was Henry, returned like Odysseus from a long, long journey.
When Henry's mother offered her another piece of cake, Miranda said, "You look so much alike." She glanced from Henry's mother back to Henry. "Even though . . ."
"Even though he looks just like Kit?" Leanne ruffled Henry's hair, accidentally grazing Miranda's cheek. "Sorry," she said, pulling back her hand.
Miranda caught her breath. The closeness of Henry, the touch of the woman's hand, a gentleness meant for her son mistakenly shared with a stranger--she felt somehow moved, on the verge of tears.
Leanne smiled, looking more like Henry than ever, and moved away.
Really, Miranda, you are becoming absurder and absurder, as Josie used to say.
"What's the matter, dear? Don't like cake?" It was the old woman.
Miranda forced herself to smile. "Me? Oh yes. Love it."
"Eat up, then," Aunt Charlotte said, her hungry eyes on Miranda's untouched slice of cake. "Can't make an omelette without breaking eggs."
A month or so after the tea party, Lou and Rosalyn returned from Palm Springs. Lou appeared the very next day, knocking on the door of the Weissmann cottage. He wanted to extend a personal invitation to a welcome-home party.
"All of us together again," he said happily. "What an occasion!"
Annie was embraced by her enthusiastic cousin, from which position she contemplated the prospect of socializing once again enveloped by Cousin Lou's capacious family bosom. In addition to all the people she did not know very well, there might easily be those she wished she had never met--Amber, for example, and Gwen. Would they be at this party? Perhaps they would bring Frederick. Perhaps Frederick would bring his sister, Felicity . . .
"It's a big tent, your family," she said when Cousin Lou released her.
At that moment, Miranda burst through the door, followed by Henry and his mother, Leanne.
"Cousin Lou! You're back!" Miranda threw her arms around him.
"You're looking well," he said. The last time he had seen her, she had been so drawn. Withdrawn as well. What a surprising language English is, he thought, not for the first time. Drawn. Withdrawn. He would have to draw her out and see what this was all about! "Roses in your cheeks."
Miranda smiled. Why, Miranda is irresistible, Lou remembered suddenly. But she had recently been so, so . . . negligible. That was the word for the Miranda of Palm Springs. Moody, absent, quiet, irrelevant. But here she was with her old funny, suggestive smile--half a challenge, half a reassurance. He hadn't seen that smile in a long time. He sighed with pleasure. He liked people to be happy.
And yet, how could she smile? He'd heard she'd gone bankrupt. Rosalyn said her business had been dissolved. She had nothing, absolutely nothing.
The thought of bankruptcy made his stomach drop.
What a brave woman she was, putting up a strong front.
She was looking in the mirror. "Hey, I do have roses in my cheeks."
Henry examined her cheeks in his solemn literal way.
"Hello, Henry," Lou said, "remember me?"
Henry ran back to the other woman who had come into the room. He wrapped his arms and legs around her leg, then stared at Lou with an expression of menacing confusion.
"This is Henry's mother, Leanne Maybank."
"Maybank," Betty said. "It is such a pretty name. Every time I hear it."
"It is, isn't it?" Leanne said. "But that's not really why Kit took my name."
"Maybank?" Miranda said.
"Your husband took your name and kept it after you split up?" Cousin Lou swayed from side to side, clearly agitated.
"Lovely name," Betty said again.
"It's a new world, a new world," Lou continued. He emitted a series of unhappy grunts: "Uh, uh, uh. Sometimes I think I'm getting old."
"He just really didn't like his own name."
"Why not?" Annie asked, fascinated by this piece of news. "Was his last name Carson or something?"
"Well . . . yes."
Kit Carson: there was an appreciative silence.