“What about your parents?” Ellis asked. “How were they with it?”

“As far as Daddy knew, I really did have my appendix out,” Julia said. “In the car on the way home from the hospital, Mama just told me she was disappointed in me. Jesus! Disappointed! Talk about a guilt trip. It was ten times worse than being screamed at or punished.”

Dorie shuddered. “I don’t want to think about how Phyllis would have handled that when I was eighteen. I don’t even want to think about how she’ll handle my pregnancy now, and I’m thirty-five and haven’t lived at home in fifteen years.”

“Mama said that it was Our Lady of Angels who intervened on my behalf and saved my life. I really could have bled out and died, probably would have if she hadn’t barged into my room. Mama pointed out that she wasn’t even supposed to be home that afternoon, she was supposed to go Christmas shopping, but something made her decide to cancel and stay home. Every year after that, right up until she got too sick to leave the house, she went to Mass in the chapel at OLA on December twelfth, the anniversary of the day I went to the hospital, to leave a wreath of flowers on the statue of Our Lady.”

“Your mama was a saint,” Dorie said, shaking her head. “I hope you know that.”

“I do,” Julia said, her lower lip trembling. “You don’t know how much I miss her.”

Ellis raised her wine glass in a toast. “To Catherine Capelli. God rest her soul. And to hell with Amber Peek!”

Julia raised her own glass, and Dorie, lacking one, raised her Fudgsicle stick.

*   *   *

Later, after they’d pushed a sleepy Dorie off to bed, Julia and Ellis went back to the kitchen to clean up. By unspoken agreement, Julia put away the dishes and Ellis swept the floors. “I’m turning in,” Julia said finally, draping the dish towel over the back of the kitchen door. “All this emotional upheaval just wears me out.”

“Can you stand one more question? I swear, after this, I won’t bring it up again,” Ellis said.

“I think I know what you’re gonna ask. Jack, right?”

“Well, yeah,” Ellis said. “Did you ever tell him? Or even see him again?”

“No, and no. He got shipped off to paratrooper school at the end of October, right around the time I missed my first period. He wrote me a couple times, and I wrote back once, but we were just kids. He wanted me to come see him, but I had school, and anyway, in my case, absence didn’t make the heart grow fonder. As for telling him about the pregnancy—no, I never did. I couldn’t even really admit it to myself, let alone him. I was all about denial.”

Ellis touched Julia’s shoulder lightly. “That was a hell of a secret to keep all these years. Does Booker even know?”

“No,” Julia said sharply. “I told you, aside from my mother—and that bitch Amber Peek, who only found out because her cousin happened to be in the emergency room with a broken wrist the night I was there—nobody knew.”

“Will you tell him now, since you’ve told us?”

Julia sighed. “Probably. He wouldn’t care so much about the pregnancy thing, Booker’s been around. The thing is, he wants kids. And I’m not even sure I can have a baby.”

“Oh yeah,” Ellis said, her eyes widening. “What does your gynecologist say?”

“I’ve never really asked,” Julia admitted. “At the time, they told me lots of women get pregnant and have babies after having an ectopic pregnancy, even with only one good tube, like I have. All these years, it’s never really been an issue. I had a great career, I’d seen my mother drowning in babies and diapers, and I told myself that was never gonna happen to me.”

“But now?”

“Who knows?” Julia said lightly. “Anyway, I really am going to bed now. G’night, Ellie-Belly.”

When Julia was gone, Ellis wandered aimlessly around the house. She put the deck of cards back in their box, pushed chairs under the dining room table, straightened sofa cushions. She tried the television again, but the cable was still out. She got out her phone for the first time in hours, checking to see if she had any e-mails or missed calls.

Nothing. She’d halfway been hoping for an e-mail from Mr. Culpepper. She smiled at the memory of his last message, and wondered again just how old Mr. Culpepper might be. Not that it mattered.

It was late, well past midnight, but she was oddly restless. The bookshelves by the fireplace were full of paperbacks. She trailed her fingertips across their spines—mostly romances, mysteries, and thrillers. She chose a battered Kathleen Woodiwiss paperback, The Flame and the Flower, smiling at the memory of how she and Julia had swiped Julia’s mother’s copy of the same book. They’d been what, thirteen? They’d taken the book out to the Capellis’ boathouse and read it by flashlight, giggling over the smutty parts.

Ellis went upstairs and put on her pajamas. The air in the room was hot and still. She turned on the ceiling fan and dialed down the thermostat on the window air-conditioning unit. She climbed into bed, and switched on the old-fashioned white hobnail glass lamp on her bedside table. Its shade was yellowed and coated with dust, and the bulb threw off a tiny, tired glow of orangish light. Not that it mattered. She was too keyed up to settle down with a book. She turned off the light and willed herself to sleep.

Eventually, she closed her eyes and drifted into a dream. She was in a hospital nursery, full of dozens and dozens of beautiful, pink, pudgy babies. In her dream, she leaned over a pink bassinet and saw an infant with Dorie’s strawberry blond hair, freckles, and green eyes. The next bassinet held a long, slender baby with Julia’s perfect cheekbones and dark, almond eyes. And next to that was another infant—with familiar marble blue eyes, protruding ears, and the Greene thin upper lip. The little boy opened his mouth and screamed—well, yowled—as she leaned in closer to look. Ellis’s dream self scurried away, and in the next bassinet, she saw the most beautiful baby of all: a little boy with a thick shock of dark hair like her mother’s, and her father’s calm, steady gaze. The baby was sucking his thumb, and when he saw dream-Ellis, he looked up and winked.

The wink startled Ellis awake. She sat straight up in bed, and for a moment, wondered if the dream meant anything. Eventually she decided maybe it just meant she shouldn’t drink so much wine late at night. She yawned and wished she could sleep again, but the loud hum of the air conditioner and the responding rattle of the window glass now had her wide awake. And hungry.

She went downstairs and out to the kitchen, opening cupboards and the refrigerator, trying to decide what she was hungry for, and settling for a chunk of cheddar cheese. She ate half, and then pitched the rest into the trash. Not really hungry, not really sleepy. What a mood she was in. She turned off the kitchen light, intending to go back to bed, but when she glanced out the window, she saw the full moon and reconsidered. She was at the beach, wasn’t she? Might as well enjoy it.

It was still hot out, but a breeze rustled the sea oats on the dunes, and she smelled a hint of beach rosemary mixed with the salt air. The worn boards of the walkway were cool to the soles of her bare feet. When she reached the landing at the top of the walk, she was startled. Somebody was sitting in one of the beach chairs. Suddenly remembering how she was dressed, she started to back away, but it was too late.

The garage guy turned around in his chair, a cigar clamped between his lips. The lit end glowed in the deep purple darkness. He looked her up and down, and then turned back towards the ocean.

It pissed Ellis off, him dismissing her like that. Did he think she’d turn tail and run, like the last time? She had as much right to be here as him. Pajamas or no.

“Hey,” she said, defiantly sinking down into the chair next to his.

He grunted an acknowledgment and continued staring off at the twin moons, one hanging low in the summer sky, the other reflected in the ocean.