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June sold milk and cheese and nobody died from it. It’s true men didn’t ask her out to dinner, but they did buy goats from her and slaughter them, which was the one thing she wouldn’t do herself. Lila’s grandmother said, “June, it really might be easier for you if you didn’t give them names.” But she did; the moment one was born she’d call it something. Lila remembers June introducing her to one lounging on the bed. “This is Delilah, she’s a lovely little girl just like you. Would you like to pet her?”
    Frankly, Lila thought Aunt June herself looked a bit goatish, scrawny, brown and slightly whiskered. How could this person be the best friend of her own fastidious grandmother?
    But when the two of them talked, what revelations for a listening child! Who was getting married, who wasn’t, who was pregnant—“expecting”—and who wasn’t, who was fighting or drinking or carrying on.
    It’s rather sweet that that’s what they called it: carrying on.
    They had some concept of what they called “decency.” From what Lila could tell, they considered it the basic requirement for fixing almost any difficulty, and judged it to have less to do with rules than with tolerance: giving people room. This would have been especially evident to June, who must have known people found her odd. Certainly Lila, off in a corner eating her sandwiches, dodging the goats, thought she was weird.
    Lila still suspects June and her grandmother were right, though: that if their version of decency were a first principle, the rest would only be details. Tom, however, when she suggested that once, looked almost insulted. “I expect there’s more to politics and history than that, really.”
    â€œI wonder. Really. Politics and history are the details, but humane behaviour, respect—that might be the true trick.” But it was not a subject to linger over. She and Tom are not necessarily a good pair to discuss decent behaviour. Look at them.
    On the other hand, Lila has considerable respect, which is surely at least part of a decent regard, for Tom’s wife. She can make the argument (although not with Tom, who’s touchy) that Dorothy is a grown-up woman, not a bit helpless, who can see what is there to be seen if she wants, and can make her own choices, as in some respects she already has. She is fully equal to Lila, or Tom, in all this; and more than equal in some ways.
    As reasoning goes, that may tip towards the specious. At least it’s tortuous; although it’s also gratifying, how supple Lila’s mind can be. It makes her laugh.
    When she and Tom reach England, will they still dodge certain subjects? But from that great distance, certain subjects may not be interesting, or important. The two of them will be very busy with pleasure, using time, building their pictures together.
    Lila’s grandmother said she would have loved to travel, but she never could. With June, she laid out her troubles the way June set down plates for the goats, which was how Lila heard she was sometimes lonely and not always happy. Once, Lila’s grandfather gave her a box of chocolates and she was so touched she was almost in tears telling June. Or for all Lila knew, she was almost in tears for something else. “I’m so tired,” she said.
    Who else could she say that to but June, who didn’t tell her, “Buck up,” or “Really, though, you’re very lucky.” She said, “I know,” and “Yes.” They were friends. Then, to Lila, this was affection of an unfamiliar kind.
    The autumn Lila was ten or eleven, after her family was home from their holiday, June slipped in her yard, cracked her head, knocked herself out and also broke her hip. She lay outside in the rain for more than a day, until a man looking to buy cheese finally found her. She died in the hospital a few days later, of pneumonia.
    When her