By the time he’d settled up and returned to the private dining room, the mostly teenaged waitstaff was busy clearing away the last of the dessert dishes and tossing stained tablecloths into portable hampers with more energy and enthusiasm than they’d exhibited earlier in the evening. They probably had a party to go to, Griffin supposed. Hard to believe that Laura herself was past all that now, the anticipation of a young night and its many possibilities. The rehearsal guests had all gone out onto the porch, below which, on the lawn, a drunken game of volleyball was under way, with just enough light from the porch to play by. Andy’s family, many of whom had traveled a long way that day, had evidently decided to call it a night, so it was just Joy’s that remained.

Harve, looking tired and agitated, sat at the far end of the porch, near the top of the long, sloping wheelchair ramp. He’d nodded off during the later stages of the dinner, though he refused to admit it, even after snorting violently awake, which caused Jared and Jason to reenact the event for the edification of the children at the designated kids’ table, after which they were all snorting awake and falling out of their chairs. The old man was now struggling to get up out of his chair, apparently determined not to be wheeled down the ramp past the volleyballers. Griffin sympathized, though Dot apparently didn’t. With an assist from Joy’s sister Jane, she pushed him back into his seat and told him, unless Griffin was mistaken, to behave. Whatever Harve said back caused her to spin on her heel and head indoors in the general direction of the ladies’ restroom, leaving Jane to reason with her father.

Joy was at the far end of the porch, talking to her other sister, June, and June’s husband, but Griffin could tell she was monitoring the situation. According to Laura, the whole family-Harve and Dot, her mother, Jane and June and their families, Jason and Jared-was sharing the large cottage at the water’s edge apart from the main hotel. Its dark outline was visible against the night sky, its windows glowing warmly yellow. No doubt it would remind Joy of the house they’d rented when she was a girl. Jane and June had probably remembered to bring board games, and after Harve and the smaller children were put to bed, the rest of them would stay up late playing Monopoly and Clue, swapping all the old nostalgic family stories. Griffin, who’d heard these too many times, nevertheless felt a twinge of regret (admit it) at being suddenly outside the family circle. Would Ringo, ridiculous oaf that he was, be invited to the table tonight and given Griffin ’s Professor Plum game piece, his silver thimble? He’d made a point of telling Griffin that he was staying in the hotel proper, but that might just be for appearances. He now joined Joy and her sister and brother-in-law, and when Griffin saw him rest his hand lightly on the small of her back, it occurred to him that having just discharged his primary responsibility of the evening, he could slip away unnoticed and probably not be missed.

Why didn’t he want to? He was standing in the porch doorway trying to figure that out when his mother said, You know who you remind me of, don’t you? Which Griffin took to be a rhetorical question. I thought you told Laura I was just like you, he fired back, and the shot must have landed, because she shut up. Off to the right he noticed a small alcove from which he could see, without being observed himself, both the porch and the game on the lawn below. A coffee urn had been set up on a sideboard, and that, he decided, was probably a good idea before he drove back up the peninsula. He poured himself a cup and closed the door, lest someone notice him and decide he needed company.

With the exception of pregnant Kelsey, the whole wedding party, as well as some of the teenaged guests, had been recruited to play volleyball. The little kids wanted to play, too, and were running around with their arms up, though the game was taking place well above them. Laura and Andy were on the back line, and when they stopped to kiss, the ball landed right at their feet, causing their teammates to groan. Jared and Jason had positioned themselves on opposite sides of the net and were shoving each other back whenever one of them violated the neutral zone. “Coming right down your throat, J.J.,” Jason warned, and when the ball came over the net he spiked it hard, clearly aiming at his brother, but the shot careened away and narrowly missed Kelsey, who was watching, one hand under her belly, from what she’d wrongly imagined was a safe distance.

“Hey, hey, easy! Watch out for the little ones!” June called from the porch, and was promptly ignored.

I hope you aren’t going to tell me you enjoy these people, his mother said. He’d been hoping she’d been shut out when he closed the door behind him, but no such luck. You forget how well I know you, she continued. Pretend otherwise all you want, but you’ve always wanted to be done of these people, and now you are. This sentimental mood you’re in doesn’t become you.

I’m ignoring you, Mom, he told her, focusing his attention on a small boy who was acting out below. Furious at being ignored, he’d sat down right in the middle of the court, his lower lip sticking out, his face a thundercloud.

A little monster, that one, his mother observed.

No, Mom, he’s a child, Griffin said, though she might be right.

Andy, apparently fearing the boy might get trampled, picked him up and set him on his shoulders and, when the ball came over the net, managed to position himself so the kid could hit it. The ball went directly into the net, but his face was aglow with importance, and he raised his arms in triumph, as he’d clearly seen some athlete do on TV, and was given a round of applause.

You don’t like children, you don’t like volleyball and you don’t suffer fools gladly.

Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think, Mom.

Fine. Be that way.

Let’s talk about something else, shall we?

We can discuss whatever you like. The weather, if you prefer. Remember how it snowed that last two weeks?

Did he ever. Giant drifts of powder banked two-thirds of the way up the hospital window. Laura’s flight out had been one of the last before the airport closed, and it hadn’t reopened until Christmas Eve. Twice Griffin had to walk a good mile from the hospital to his motel, the roads impassable, his car plowed in.

In the days following Laura’s surprise visit, his mother became increasingly agitated. The morphine calmed her breathing, but something was clearly troubling her that had to do with her granddaughter, Griffin suspected, though he had no idea what. “She’s so…,” she began several times, her thought always trailing off, as if she were trying to articulate something just beyond her grasp. The oxygen made her mouth dry, so Griffin gave her some ice chips to suck on, thinking that might help, but they didn’t. “She’s so…”

“She’s so what, Mom?”

She fell asleep, still struggling, and Griffin drifted off as well, awaking to the sound of her voice.

“She’s so… kind, isn’t she?”

Kind? That was the word she’d been straining to locate? It was as if the concept were fabulously exotic, one she’d read about but hadn’t personally encountered until now. Either that or she’d done a quick genetic scan, looking for and not finding a familial antecedent.

“Yes,” he said, feeling his throat constrict with pride. “She is that.”

“She makes me almost”-she was struggling again now, and Griffin guessed that another unfamiliar concept was groping blindly toward articulation-“ashamed.”

The next day, however, she was more herself. “She’s not brilliant, though, is she?” she said, staring off into space. They’d been sitting quietly for the last hour, each in private thought. “I doubt she’ll go back to school.”