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of the encounters soon spread. When somebody got drunk in a bar or even at home, peopleknew. Actually, there were only two public places to drink on Lopez: the Islander-Lopez or the Galley. They were close together, and lots of rumors passed back and forth.
    Ruth and Rolf had their share of arguments over the years. What they argued about was not initially obvious, although it would become more so as the years passed: It was almost always about Elinor. Oddly, Ruth would always deny that she knew precisely what Rolf’s relationship with Elinor Ekenes had been. She insisted that she and Rolf never really spoke of Elinor, and she was vague and uninterested in talking about the situation. But everyone knew that Ruth frowned whenever she heard Elinor’s name. It was apparent to close observers that she knew more than she would say about Rolf and Elinor. Indeed, she remained terribly jealous of Elinor, and believed that Rolf was still carrying on with her—even after she and Rolf had been married for two decades.
    Over the years, Ruth had deftly rearranged the truth to her own satisfaction. She maintained that Rolf had never spoken to her of any affair with his late wife’s sister, and he certainly never told her that Rolf and Erik Ekenes were his sons. She said she had never asked him about the boys directly.
    She insisted that she knew very little about the boys: They lived in Vancouver, British Columbia—a whole other country, albeit only a short distance by sea from the San Juan Islands. She was lying, of course, but her friends believed she only fibbed to save face.
    The truth was that Ruth had met Elinor in Vancouver in 1960 or 1961, and of course she actually lived in the same house with Elinor and Rolf. Ruth knew the facts of the whole situation, but she chose to pretend she didn’t.
    This was pretty hard for neighbors to believe since Elinor’s sons sometimes came to Lopez Island to spend part of their vacations at the Neslund home on Alec Bay. Ruth allowed them to visit at the Neslund home in the summer.
    Public records indicate that she had been forced to deal with the facts about Rolf’s young sons a year or two after she married him. Elinor had filed a paternity suit in North Vancouver, British Columbia, claiming Rolf was her sons’ father, and that he should be supporting them.
    Rolf was ordered by the court to support young Rolf and Erik, and he actually did that until 1970, when they became beneficiaries of his Social Security dependents’ benefits. Ruth wrote the checks in the family, and it must have been galling for her to see the bank accounts that were so important to her lowered by the needs of the boys, constant reminders of Rolf’s affair with Elinor.
    Even though Rolf would have had to notify Social Security offices in 1970 and verify that Rolf and Erik were his sons for them to collect from his account, Ruth was still adamant that she didn’t know that firsthand. “I don’t know anything about it,” she said flatly. “I’m pretty sure that he [Rolf] signed every document that their mother put in front of him.”
    While Ruth denied that she knew anything at all about the boys purported to be her husband’s children, the rest of her memory was impeccable. She recalled every single financial deal she had ever been involved in. Her mind was like a big steel filing cabinet, full of details that proved her business acumen.
    The Neslunds never had children together, possibly because Ruth was in her forties when they married. But she kept in touch with about a dozen of her nieces and nephews and was very close to her niece Donna, who wasa frequent visitor in Ruth and Rolf’s home. Ruth was something of a surrogate mother to her. Ruth claimed that Donna didn’t like her own mother, Ruth’s older sister Mamie, and that she was trying to effect a reconciliation. In the meantime, she welcomed Donna into her home. And so did Rolf.
    The first ten years of the Neslunds’ marriage passed quietly, and