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he couldn’t come Wednesday either. “Besides,” he said, “baseball practice is starting soon, so I guess after this I won’t be free anymore.”
    Lucy said, “Oh.”
    “Pressing athletic obligations, and all that,” he said.
    There was a pause. He forced himself not to speak. Instead he conjured up a picture of Danny, for whose sake he was doing this. His only brother! His dearest relative, who trusted everyone completely and believed whatever you told him.
    “Well, thanks anyway,” Lucy said sadly, and then she said goodbye. Ian was suddenly not so certain. He wondered if he had misjudged her. He stood gripping the receiver and he noticed how his heart ached, as if it were he, not Lucy, who had been wounded.
    * * *
    For Doug’s birthday, Bee made his favorite hors d’oeuvres—smoked oyster log and spinach balls and Chesapeake crab spread. Claudia made a coconut cake that looked like a white shag bath mat. She and her family were the first to arrive. She had Ian come out to the kitchen with her to help put on the candles—fifty-nine of them, this year. Ian wasn’t in a very good mood, but Claudia kept joshing him so finally he had to smile. You couldn’t stay glum around Claudia for long; she was so funny and slapdash and comfortable, in her boxy tan plaid shirt the same color as her skin and the maternity slacks she was wearing till she got her figure back. They ran out of birthday candles and started using other kinds—three tall white tapers and several of those stubby votive lights their mother kept for power failures. By now they had the giggles. It was almost like the old days, when Claudia wasn’t married yet and still belonged completely to the family.
    So Ian said, “Hey, Claude.”
    “Hmm?”
    “You know Lucy.”
    “What about her?” she asked, still teary with laughter.
    “
You
don’t think she had that baby early. Do you?” Her smile faded.
    “Do you?” he persisted.
    “Oh, Ian, who am I to say?”
    “I’m wondering if somebody ought to tell Danny,” he said.
    “Tell him?” she said. “No, wait. You mean, talk about it? You can’t do that!”
    “But he looks like a dummy, Claude. He looks so … fooled!”
    He was louder than he’d meant to be. Claudia glanced toward the door. Then she set a hand on his arm and spoke hurriedly, in an undertone. “Ian,” she said.
    “Lots of times, people have, oh, understandings, you might say, that outsiders can’t even guess at.”
    “Understandings! What kind of understandings? And then also—”
    But he was too late. The swinging door burst open and the children rushed in, crying, “Mom!” and “Danny and them are here, Mom.” Claudia said, “What do you think of our cake?” She held it up, all spiky and falling apart. She was laughing again. Ian pushed past her and left the kitchen.
    In the dining room, Lucy bounced the baby on her shoulder while she talked with Bee. She still had her coat on; she looked fresh and happy, and she smiled at Ian without a trace of guilt. His mother said, “Ian, hon, could you fetch the booster seats?” She was laying a notched silver fish knife next to each plate. The Bedloes owned the most specialized utensils—sugar shells and butter-pat spears and a toothy, comblike instrument for slicing angel food cake. Ian marveled that people could consider such things important. “Also we’ll need those bibs in the linen drawer,” his mother said, but he passed on through without speaking. From the living room he heard the TV set blaring a basketball game. “Notice that young fellow on the right,” his father was saying. “What’s-his-name. Total concentration. What’s that fellow’s name?”
    Ian climbed the stairs while his family’s voices filled the house below him like water—just that murmury and chuckly, gliding through the rooms to form one single, level surface.
    On Saturday Cicely’s parents were taking a trip to Cumberland, leaving Cicely in charge of her little brother. They