Sarah took a long swallow of her coffee, then put the mug down. After taking off her sunglasses, she placed her elbows on the table and rested her head in her hands. Her dark brown velvety eyes followed me as I moved about.

"How many are we going to be for lunch, Mal?" she asked.

"About eighteen. I think. Let's see, there's my mother and Diana, you and the twins and Jenny, plus me and Andrew, which makes eight. I've invited Nora, Eric, and Anna, bringing us up to eleven. Then there're three couples, the Lowdens, the Martins, and the Callens, making seventeen, and two more kids. Vanessa, the Callens' little girl, and Dick and Olivia Martin are bringing their young son, Luke. So I guess that makes nineteen altogether."

"All I can say is, thank God we don't have to do the cooking."

I laughed at the expression on her face. "I know what you mean. Luckily, Andrew has everything under control, and he's roped in all the men to do the barbecuing. Nora and my mother and Diana will help me to fetch and carry."

"I'm hoping I'll feel better by lunchtime, that I'll be able to pitch in."

"It's not necessary, Sash. Just relax. And in any case, I'm setting up a buffet table here. It'll hold most of the other food, such as the salads, the breads, the baked beans, baked potatoes, and corn. It's only the hot dogs, hamburgers, and chops that'll have to be brought over from the barbecues on the kitchen patio."

Sarah nodded but didn't say anything for a few minutes. She sat staring into space with a reflective expression on her face. Eventually, she said slowly, "Your mother looks like the cat that's swallowed the canary this morning."

"What do you mean?"

"Her eyes are bright and shiny, and she did nothing but smile at me when I was having my toast. And I couldn't help thinking that it was a very self-satisfied smile. Even a bit smug."

"I guess I can tell you," I began, and then I hesitated.

"Sure you can, you've been telling me everything since the day you could talk."

"It's supposed to be a secret."

"So what, you've always told me your secrets, Mal. Yours and everybody else's, actually."

"Well, so have you too!" I shot back.

"I bet it's to do with a man." Sarah grinned at me and winked.

"I'm impressed. How did you guess?"

She burst out laughing. "She has that look. The look, the one that says, 'I have a man and he's all mine.' A guy might not recognize it, but every woman does."

"My mother's getting married."

"Golly gee whiz! You've got to be kidding!"

"No, I'm not."

"Good for Auntie Jess. Who's the man?"

"David Nelson. I think you've met him once or twice when he's been at my mother's."

Sarah let out a low whistle. "He's quite a catch, I'd say. Very good-looking and successful, and younger than her."

"Are you sure he's younger?"

"Yes, I am. My mother said something to me a few months ago about Aunt Jess and David, and she mentioned he was about fifty-eight."

"Oh, only four years, that's not much. Anyway, my mother looks a lot younger than he, don't you think?"

"Yes, she does."

"I can't imagine why she wants to get another face job, though. She doesn't need it, in my opinion."

If Sarah was startled by my comment, she did not show it. She said, "No, she doesn't, but she may feel insecure, worried about her age. That's the way my mother is now that she's turned sixty, always attempting to look younger. A lot of women think that's a milestone, I guess."

I shrugged. "Maybe. On the other hand, sixty's not old. In fact, it's considered young these days. This morning, when my mother mentioned she wanted to have a little nip and tuck, I tried to convince her she didn't need it. But she'll do what she wants. She always has."

"I wonder if she's told my mother? About getting married."

"I don't know. But don't say anything, Sash, just in case she hasn't. As I said, it's a secret. Mom hasn't even informed my father yet, nor has she talked to her lawyer about a divorce. She just made her mind up in the last couple of days… at least, that's the impression she gave me."

"I won't tell a soul, I promise, Mal. And I'm really glad for Auntie Jess, glad she's happy."

"I am too." I paused, staring at Sarah without saying anything for a moment, then I flopped down opposite her.

"Is something wrong?" she asked, frowning slightly, pinning her beautiful dark eyes on mine.

I shook my head. "No. I had a sort of… well, a sort of revelation earlier. My mother was fussing with the potato salad, and I suddenly found myself remembering an incident with a potato salad that happened on another Fourth of July morning. When I was five. I'd buried it deep and forgotten all about it. Anyway, the memory came back, at least a fragment of it, and I started thinking about my parents and their relationship when I was little, and I suddenly felt rather sorry for my mother. It struck me she must have suffered greatly when she was a younger woman."

Sarah nodded in agreement. "Looking back, she probably did. She was always alone. You two were always alone. At least that's the way I remember it."

I was silent for a moment, before murmuring, "I had the most awful feeling inside this morning, Sashy…"

"What kind of feeling?"

"I felt sick at heart. I suddenly understood that I'd been unfair, that I'd probably done my mother a terrible injustice-and for years."

"What do you mean?"

"I blamed her for their marital problems, but now I'm not so sure it was always her fault."

"I'm certain it wasn't. Anyway, it takes two to tango, Mal." Sarah sighed under her breath. "Your father was hardly ever in this country, the way I recall it. The normal thing was for him to be sitting on a pile of rubble in the Middle East, examining bits of old stone and trying to ascertain how ancient they were, which millennium they came from."'

"He had to be away a lot for his work, you know that, Sarah," I said, then realized I sounded defensive.

"But he never took you and your mother with him. He always went off alone."

"I had to go to school."

"Not when you were little, you didn't, and when you were older you could have gone to a local school wherever your father's dig was, or you could have had a tutor."

"Going to a local school wouldn't have been very practical," I pointed out. "I wouldn't have been able to speak the local language, for one thing. After all, I was a little kid, I wasn't fluent in Arabic or Urdu or Portuguese or Greek. Or whatever."

"You don't have to be sarcastic, Mal, and look, there are ways to make unusual situations work. Many ways."

"Perhaps my parents couldn't afford a tutor," I muttered.

Sarah was silent.

I studied her for a moment, then asked, "Are you blaming my father?"

"Hey, I'm not placing the blame anywhere, on anyone!" she exclaimed. "How do I know what went on between your parents. Not even you really know that. Jesus, I didn't understand what was happening between mine, either. Kids never do. But it's always the kids who suffer. Ultimately."

When I said nothing, Sarah continued, "Maybe your mother felt it was better, wiser for you to be brought up in New York, rather than in some broken-down, flea-bitten hotel somewhere in the middle of the Arabian desert."

"Or maybe my father simply preferred to leave us behind, to go off alone. For his own personal reasons." I stared hard at her again.

"Come on, Mal, I never said that, nor did I even remotely imply it!"

"I'm not being accusatory or trying to put words in your mouth. Still, it might well have been so. But I suppose I'll never know about their marriage, what went wrong with it."

"You could ask your mother."

"Oh, Sarah, I couldn't."

"Sure you could. There'll be a moment in time when you'll be able to ask her. You'll see. And I bet she won't bite your head off, either. In fact, she'll probably be glad you asked, relieved to talk about your father and her. People do like to unburden themselves, especially mothers to their daughters."