Henry was looking around. "Randa?" he asked.

"Are you Randa?" the mother asked. "He talks about you quite a bit. I'm Leanne."

Annie sat down and explained that Randa was her sister, Miranda.

"Miranda's at home," she said to Henry.

The woman was blond, her hair short and straight, her narrow eyes a faded blue. She wore no makeup, and Annie could see at once why she didn't bother with it — her skin glowed, smooth as a child's. She seemed a little older than Kit, however. Well, Annie thought, returning her friendly smile, the man ran true to form in the age department, that seemed clear.

Henry climbed over his mother and pressed his face against the window. He stared at the passing lights and sang a jumbled version of the alphabet.

"You were in Africa?" Annie said, trying to make conversation that somehow did not touch on Kit Maybank.

"We're staying with Aunt Charlotte now. She needs some looking after. And the house is huge."

"Yes, I've heard that," Annie said, then fell into an uncomfortable silence, for how else would she have heard that except from Kit?

Henry unglued himself from the window to watch the conductor punch holes in his mother's ticket but not in Annie's monthly pass. Annie explained that she was a commuter, then explained what a commuter was.

"You go on the train every day?" he asked, his eyes wide with awe and envy.

"Two times."

"We saw dinosaurs," he said a little defensively.

After that, conversation flagged until they neared the station at Westport.

"We don't get off until Greens Farms," Leanne said as Annie started putting on her coat.

"Right. Of course. Your aunt's house is so much closer to the Greens Farms station. I like that station. And the little old-fashioned post office there. Kind of my favorite place in Westport."

Leanne laughed.

"I want to go to Randa's house," Henry said.

"You never met Aunt Charlotte, did you?" asked Leanne.

"I want to go to Randa's house."

Annie shook her head. "No. Never did."

"No. She and Kit are not exactly on friendly terms, so you wouldn't have."

"But you're obviously on good terms with her."

"Oh yes. She's a bit of a gorgon, but we love her, don't we, Henry?"

Henry sucked silently on his fist.

No wonder Kit had lived in the run-down boathouse. But what had he done to alienate his aunt? What had his ex-wife done to keep the confidence of her in-law? Annie wished she had time to pursue this interesting conversation. Of course, it was none of her business. But gossip so rarely was.

Henry continued to want to go to Randa's house, now in a loud singsong chant. Annie wondered if she should respond. She knew Miranda would be overjoyed to see Henry. But perhaps Henry's mother would not be overjoyed to drop her son off at the home of her ex's ex. It all seemed very complicated.

"I want — "

"Okay, okay," his mother said, clapping a hand over Henry's mouth. "Listen," she added suddenly to Annie. "You'll all come for tea. Yes. Perfect." She released Henry's mouth and dug in her purse. "Here." She thrust her card at Annie with a dazzling smile and an almost military sense of authority. "It's settled."

Annie laughed. Leanne reminded her a little of Miranda.

While Annie was rumbling home on the commuter train to Westport, Frederick was rumbling toward New York on the Amtrak train from Boston. Amber and Crystal were not with him. They had taken his car a week earlier. Amber was accompanying Crystal to Great Barrington, where they were house-sitting (Frederick could not bear to pronounce "home-sitting" even silently in his thoughts), then they would both continue on to the city to meet Frederick. They were all staying with Felicity and Joe in Joe's big apartment on Central Park West, although Felicity didn't know it. Amber and Crystal were going to be a surprise. Frederick chuckled, imagining his sister's face. They could all go to hell, he decided. He asked very little in life, really. Just to sit in his office and listen to the sea and write his books. Why was there always so much fuss?

His head back, Frederick closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on something other than the fuss. He had to write a book review and tried to compose his opening sentence, but the novel he was reviewing, a stark and painful allegory set in Las Vegas, was, finally, boring. Everything, he'd discovered, was boring as you hurtled toward the abyss. Fear, hopelessness — it turned out they were unequivocally dull. He decided to take up smoking again as soon as possible.

Amber and Crystal had spent the day shopping, starting on Fifth Avenue, ending up at the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle. They were meeting Frederick for drinks at Gabriel's, on the other side of Sixtieth Street. They perched on their bar stools, their shopping bags clustered around their feet. They ordered Cosmopolitans and waited.

"I feel very artistic," Crystal said.

"Don't you mean sophisticated? There's nothing artistic about shopping, or even cocktails, to be honest."

"Pardonnez-moi." Crystal contemplated her pink drink. "Hey, should you even be drinking? Doesn't it cut off their placenta or oxygen or something?"

"It's my placenta," Amber said. But then she saw Frederick pushing open the door and slid the drink away from her.

"Hey, Daddy-o," she said, standing and embracing him.

"You really have to stop calling me that, Amber."

"Silly," she said, kissing him.

He smiled. "Ready, girls? Once more into the breach?"

They gave him a quizzical look.

"Henry the Fifth, dear friends." He was insufferable, he knew. And rather enjoying it. And entitled, too, to a little self-indulgence. Think what was ahead. My God, think what was ahead. He took out one of his brand-new Marlboros.

"No smoking, sir," said the bartender.

Ah yes. No smoking in restaurants. How could he have forgotten? But then, he hadn't smoked in thirty years, so perhaps he could be forgiven. He slid the pack back in his pocket. "Well," he said. "All ready for another stab at my children?"

Stab, Amber thought. Yes, she was ready for that all right.

They arrived just at eight. Gwen and Ron lived in a two-bedroom apartment on the third floor of a brownstone on Bank Street. Frederick was a little out of breath from the stairs when Gwen answered the door. The cigarettes he'd smoked on the street had not helped.

"Oh!" she said. "Look who the cat dragged in. Amber and Crystal. I'm afraid I wasn't expecting you."

"'Unbidden guests are often welcomest when they are gone,'" Frederick said. "Henry the Sixth." He bowed. I'm on a roll, he thought. If only Shakespeare had written Henry the Seventh.

Gwen stepped back, viewing him with a puzzled frown. "Are you drunk?" She could think of no other reason that her father, so polite, so gentlemanly, would show up on her doorstep for dinner with two uninvited guests and then stand there and insult them. "You look pale. And you smell like cigarettes."

He was about to take out the red pack and proudly show her the depths to which he had sunk when Amber said, "It's the steps. He needs to do some aerobic exercise. I tell him to go to the gym, but you know how he is."

Gwen did know how he was. But she did not like it that Amber seemed to know, too.

As they set two extra places, Evan said, "Hey there, Freddie." He shook his head and laughed, then turned to Crystal. "So, how's the home-sitting industry?"

"You sit on homes?" one of the twins asked.

"I am a student."

The girl looked disappointed.

"Life coaching, right?" Evan said. "Do you have, like, a whistle? Gatorade?"

"I'd say you could use some coaching yourself, sir. In manners."

"I could use a lot of things." He held an imaginary joint to his lips and inhaled.

Crystal laughed.

"Evan!" Gwen said. "Jesus. There are children here."

"I'll say," Crystal said.

Evan pursed his lips in a pout. "I was just kidding around."

When shall I tell them? Frederick wondered.

"Amber, why don't you sit here, next to Ophelia?" Gwen pointed to a small stool wedged beneath a corner of the table.

"What a quaint little stool. Shaker?" She had been reading up on antiques.

Gwen nodded reluctant agreement with the intruder.

Should I tell them before they eat? Frederick wondered. That will ruin their appetites. After they eat? Then they will feel ill.

"What fun!" Amber had settled herself on the stool. "Don't I look like a little milkmaid, Ophelia?"

"Juliet," the child said petulantly, and gave Amber a kick.

Suddenly it was Frederick who felt ill. The bravado that had started in the bar deserted him. He looked at Gwennie. She had grown up to be a snob, it was true. But she was only protecting what she thought was important. She had been officious even as a child. He had always found it touching, her need to make hierarchical order out of a chaotic world. And Evan, so sarcastic and obnoxious these days. Perhaps he would outgrow it. Whether he did or not, Frederick knew he would always adore him. He watched his son torturing Crystal, playing with her like a cruel cat. Good luck to you, Evan, he thought. Those mouse sisters are cleverer than you think.

"I'm sorry Joe couldn't be here," Ron said.

"The economy." Felicity spoke as if the economy were a traffic jam. "Just terrible. I just barely made it here myself. But then I'm just a VP, and of course my part of the business is going so much more smoothly than the rest."