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went inside. “And his mother?”
    “Alden’s mother?”
    Meri nodded. “What she was like? Alden said she ran off with another man when he was eight. He never told me that before.”
    Gran sniffed. “She was a piece of work, that one. Lorded it over the whole neighborhood. Called that old monstrosity ‘the big house,’ like one of those public television shows.” She snorted. “Though Laura used to say it made it sound like the state prison.
    “Which would be fitting because that woman made Wilton miserable from the day she married him. Never satisfied, that one, finally left. Frankly, we all thought it was the best thing that could have happened to Wilton and his boy, though I’m sure they didn’t think so at the time.”
    “And Alden’s wife?”
    Gran ran water into the sink and squirted detergent under the spray. “You remember her.”
    “I do remember her. She was pretty and kind of distant, I thought. But I didn’t pay much attention. I was a teenager, and then I was off at college.”
    “She was a gold-digging little bitch.”
    Meri nearly dropped the plate she was scraping into the trash. She’d never heard her grandmother use that word before.
    “Like father like son. Alden married one just like his mother. It’s amazing the man has anything left. There’s some family money, whatever the mother didn’t abscond with. His father left him pretty well off.”
    Therese took the plate from Meri and slid it into the soapy water. “Everybody says he makes good money as an illustrator, but they also say she takes every penny she can screw out of him. Now go get those other plates if you want to go over there before you drive back to town.”
    A half hour later, Meri was walking over the same meadow she’d run across the night before. Today was sunny, though, and only a few puddles remained to remind her of that headlong reckless flight.
    She knew that Alden might be working, so instead of disturbing him by banging on the door—a remembered image she could do without today—she walked around the house to the ocean side, where she could look in the glass of the solarium where he sometimes worked.
    His drafting table was set up, and his tools were lined up within reach. He was wearing a paint-splattered dress shirt, open at the collar and sleeves rolled up to the elbow. A curl of dark hair fell over his forehead, the rest curled around the frayed collar.
    He looked up, saw her, and smiled.
    It caught her off guard, that smile, as it always did. Mercurial and ephemeral. And totally unpredictable.
    He tilted his head in question, then put down his pen and motioned her in.
    The grasses grew high around the glass room and she had to trample a path to the door.
    “I wanted to say good-bye before I go back to town,” she said and stepped up to the flagstone room.
    The smile was gone; a frown, just as ephemeral, passed over his face. “You’re coming back next weekend?”
    Meri walked in and stood looking out to the dunes and the expanse of ocean and the black rocks of the breakwater.
    She knew he wasn’t just asking about her plans for the weekend. “Of course, if I can get away. But work is ramping up. I didn’t tell you, but I’ve worked down to the base level of that wacky ceiling and I think there’s gilt.”
    “Exciting.”
    “Yeah. A little unnerving. Even if it’s real gold, it’s probably damaged beyond repair. Though it probably isn’t really gilt. I mean, what idiot would paint over gold?”
    Alden raised an ironic eyebrow.
    “I know, stupid question. It’s really amazing that the house has been left unrestored for so long. Maybe because it isn’t fish or fowl. Not late enough to be Gilded Age, but not old enough to be Revolutionary. It’s amazing though, and it has some beautiful features. Certainly enough features not to be left as a condemned boardinghouse. Now if Doug can just convince the local historical societies and their patrons to support the rest of the renovation. I’m