'You look like Audrey Hepburn,' he told her, 'you know that?'

She gave us Kools and cinnamon gumballs, told funny stories. I laughed and looked out the window and prayed we'd miss our turn. I had never been to Connecticut in my life. I had never been to a funeral, either.

Shady Brook was on a narrow road that veered off sharply from the highway and twisted along for many miles, over bridges, past farmland and horse pastures and fields. After a time the rolling meadows segued into a golf course. shady brook country club, said the wood-burned sign that swung in front of the mock-Tudor clubhouse. The houses began after that – large, handsome, widely spaced, each set on its own six or seven acres of land.

The place was like a maze. Francis looked for numbers on the mailboxes, nosing into one false trail after another and backing out again, cursing, grinding the gears. There were no signs and no apparent logic to the house numbers, and after we'd poked around blind for about half an hour, I began to hope that we would never find it at all, that we could just turn around and have a jolly ride back to Hampden.

But of course we did find it. At the end of its own cul-de-sac, it was a large modern house of the 'architectural' sort, bleached I cedar, its split levels and asymmetrical terraces selt-consciously bare. The yard was paved with black cinder, and there was no greenery at all except a few gingko trees in postmodern tubs, placed at dramatic intervals.

'Wow,' said Sophie, a true Hampden girl, ever dutiful in homage to the New.

I looked over at Francis and he shrugged.

'His mom likes modern architecture,' he said.

I had never seen the man who answered the door but with a sick, dreamlike feeling I recognized him instantly. He was big and red in the face, with a heavy jaw and a full head of white hair; for a moment he stared at us, his smallish mouth fallen open into a tight, round o. Then, surprisingly boyish and quick, he sprang forward and seized Francis's hand. 'Well,' he said.

'Well, well, well.' His voice was nasal, garrulous, Bunny's voice.

'If it's not the old Carrot Top, How are you, boy?'

'Pretty good,' said Francis, and I was a little surprised at the depth and warmth with which he said it, and the strength with which he returned the handshake.

Mr Corcoran slung a heavy arm around his neck and pulled him close. This one's my boy,' he said to Sophie and me, reaching up to tousle Francis's hair. 'All my brothers were redheads and out of my boys there's not an honest-to-god redhead in the bunch. Can't understand it. Who are you, sweetheart?' he said to Sophie, disengaging his arm and reaching for her hand.

'Hi. I'm Sophie Dearbold.'

'Well, you're mighty pretty. Isn't she pretty, boys. You look just like your aunt Jean, honey.'

'What?' said Sophie, after a confused pause.

'Why, your aunt, honey. Your daddy's sister. That pretty Jean Lickfold that won the ladies' golf tournament out at the club last year.'

'No, sir. Dearbold.'

'Dearfold. Well, isn't that strange.1 don't know of any Dear folds around here. Now, I used to know a fellow name of Breedlow, but that must have been, oh, twenty years ago. He was in business. They say he embezzled a cool five million from his partner,' Tm not from around here.'

He cocked an eyebrow at her, in a manner reminiscent of Bunny. 'No?' he said.

'No.'

'Not from Shady Brook?' He said it as if he could hardly believe it.

'No.'

'Then where you from, honey? Greenwich?'

'Detroit.'

'Bless your heart then. To come all this way.'

Sophie, smiling, shook her head and started to explain when, with absolutely no warning, Mr Corcoran flung his arms around her and burst into tears.

We were frozen with horror. Sophie's eyes, over his heaving shoulder, were round and aghast as if he'd run her through with a knife.

'Oh, darling,' he wailed, his face buried deep in her neck.

'Honey, how are we going to get along without him?'

'Come on, Mr Corcoran,' said Francis, tugging at his sleeve.

'We loved him a lot, honey,' sobbed Mr Corcoran. 'Didn't we? He loved you, too. He would have wanted you to know that. You know that, don't you, dear?'

'Mr Corcoran,' said Francis, grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him hard. 'Mr Corcoran.'

He turned and fell back against Francis, bellowing.

I ran around to the other side and managed to get his arm around my neck. His knees sagged; he almost pulled me down but somehow, staggering beneath his weight, Francis and I got him to his feet and together we maneuvered him inside and I weaved down the hall with him ('Oh, shit,' I heard Sophie murmur, 'shit.') and got him into a chair.

He was still crying. His face was purple. When I reached down to loosen his collar he grabbed me by the wrist. 'Gone,' he wailed, looking me straight in the eye. 'My baby.'

His gaze – helpless, wild – hit me like a blackjack. Suddenly, and for the first time, really, I was struck by the bitter, irrevocable truth of it; the evil of what we had done. It was like running full speed into a brick wall. I let go his collar, feeling completely helpless. I wanted to die. 'Oh, God,' I mumbled, 'God help me, I'm sorry '

I felt a fierce kick in my anklebone. It was Francis. His face was as white as chalk.

A shaft of light splintered painfully in my vision. I clutched the back of the chair, closed my eyes and saw luminous red as the rhythmic noise of his sobs fell over and over again, like a bludgeon.

Then, very abruptly, they stopped. Everything was quiet. I opened my eyes. Mr Corcoran – leftover tears still rolling down his cheeks but his face otherwise composed – was looking with interest at a spaniel puppy who was gnawing furtively at the toe of his shoe.

'Jennie,' he said severely. 'Bad girl. Didn't Mama put you out?

Huh?'

With a cooing, baby noise, he reached down and scooped up the little dog – its feet paddling furiously in midair – and carried her out of the room.

'Now, go on,' I heard him say airily. 'Scat.'

A screen door creaked somewhere. In a moment he was back: calm now, beaming, a dad from an ad.

'Any of you kids care for a beer?' he said.

We were all agog. No one answered him. I stared at him, trembling, ashen-faced.

'Come on, guys,' he said, and winked. 'No takers?'

At last, Francis cleared his throat with a rasping sound. 'Ah, I believe I'd like one, yes.'

There was a silence.

The, too,' said Sophie.

Three?' said Mr Corcoran to me jovially, holding up three fingers.

I moved my mouth but no sound came out of it.

He put his head to the side, as if fixing me with his good eye.

'I don't think we've met, have we, son?'

I shook my head.

'Macdonald Corcoran,' he said, leaning forward to offer his hand. 'Call me Mack.'

I mumbled my own name.

'What's that?' he said brightly, hand to ear.

I said it again, louder this time.

'Ah! So you're the one from California! Where's your tan, son?' He laughed loudly at his joke and went to fetch the beers.

I sat down hard, exhausted and almost sick. We were in an overscaled, Architectural Digest sort of room, big and loft-like, with skylights and a fieldstone fireplace, chairs upholstered in white leather, kidney-shaped coffee table – modern, expensive, Italian stuff. Running along the back wall was a long glass trophy case filled with loving cups, ribbons, school and sports memorabilia; in ominous proximity were several large funeral wreaths which, in conjunction with the trophies, gave that corner of the room a Kentucky Derby sort of look.

'This is a beautiful space,' said Sophie. Her voice echoed amid the sharp surfaces and the polished floor.

'Why, thank you, honey,' Mr Corcoran said from the kitchen.

'We were in House Beautiful last year, and the Home section of the Times the year before that. Not quite what I'd pick myself, but Kathy's the decorator in the family, y'know.'