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on the north shore of the Long Island Sound, on the way to Connecticut and New England. I inherited the house from my aunt Meg, who died while I was still at St. Stephen’s. I lived there alone for over a year while Jack lived in a tiny, charming apartment in Brooklyn Heights. It broke my heart when he gave it up, but he moved in with me when we married, taking on a long drive twice a day to and from Brooklyn and work.
    Before Eddie was born, we added a wing on the back of the house, which gave us a huge family room with a fireplace on the first floor and an equally huge master bedroomand bath on the second. In the course of only a few years, I have gone from living a single life in a small but adequate house to being a wife and mother in a house that seems quite luxurious by my standards. Eddie has his own room with a crib and furniture that bespeak a grandmother’s love. While Jack’s mother and father are careful spenders for themselves, they seem to have no upper limit where their first grandchild is concerned.
    Before going home, I drove to Elsie Rivers’s house in a neighboring town. When I got there, I turned up the driveway and saw her in her large backyard holding the hand of my little Eddie. It was a beautiful picture, the grandmotherly woman slightly stooped to be able to hang onto the toddler’s little hand. Neither of them heard me drive up, and I got out of the car quietly, watching as Elsie walked Eddie to various plants and flowers and showed them to him. I could barely hear their voices. I stepped onto the grass, waited a minute, then called hello.
    Eddie dropped Elsie’s hand and turned toward me. As he saw me, his face lit up. “Mommy!” He took off toward me in that bumbling way little ones have of running, and I ran to him, lifted him up, and hugged and kissed him.
    “We were just having a nice little walk in the garden,” Elsie said. “Eddie had a good nap and a good lunch.”
    “And kept you busy, I bet.” I gave Elsie a hug with my free arm.
    “We keep each other busy. We have an understanding.” She touched his forehead with hers. “Don’t we, my wonderful boy?”
    Eddie giggled. We talked for a little while, and then I got Eddie into his car seat and we drove home.
    As I went slowly down Pine Brook Road toward our house, I saw my friend Melanie Gross turn into herdriveway. As she pulled into her garage, I made the same turn and followed her up the drive.
    She got her kids out of the car and came out, smiling, to greet us. “Hi, Eddie,” she said through the car window. “Where’ve you been?”
    “I’ve been to New York. Eddie’s been with Elsie.”
    “New York, huh? That sounds promising. Come on in and let’s see what we’ve got to snack on.”
    Mel’s two children still love to play with Eddie. I suppose that will end one day when they get older and playing with a little kid loses its allure, but now they all grabbed cookies and went upstairs, leaving Mel and me to sit together in quiet. Mel returned to teaching just before Eddie was born so we don’t see as much of each other as we did when I first moved to Oakwood.
    “You just lazing around New York having a good time?” she asked as the water boiled for tea.
    “Nope.”
    “You’re being mysterious. Don’t tell me. There’s been a murder.”
    “Oh Mel. They just seem to find me. A student of mine called and took me to lunch with her mother yesterday.” I told her the details as she hotted the pot and poured the water. When it was all done, we carried cups and cookies and napkins to the family room.
    “Morris Avenue in the Bronx,” she said as we sat down. “I wouldn’t be surprised if half the people in Westchester came from that part of the Bronx. It was where people started out. It’s changed, you know.”
    “So Jack tells me. I made the mistake of saying I’d like to go over there and look around. I suspect he thought I’d lost my mind.”
    “I’ve read some of Arthur Wien’s books. Mom’s