March looks at Susie, wide-eyed. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

“Well, I’m not. She told me so at dinner.”

“It’s ridiculous. Does she have any proof? Did the police ever suspect Belinda’s death was anything but normal?”

“My mom saw bruises on her.”

“Come on. And for all these years your mother never said anything? And what if she did see a bruise? For all we know, Belinda could have had a boyfriend on the side who beat her.”

“So you think she might have been beaten?”

“I think people hate Hollis—your mother included—just because he won’t put up with their bullshit. Can you understand why he’s so suspicious of everyone?”

Susie bites into a cookie. Louise Justice doesn’t usually make false accusations, and Susie still feels something grating at her. “I’m worried,” she says.

“You’re always worried.”

“I still wish you would have told me,” Susie says.

“Well, I would’ve.” March grins. “But I thought you’d disapprove.”

“Who, me?”

“Yes, you.”

They both laugh. No one, after all, could disapprove more.

“Stop worrying about me,” March says. “You don’t have to.”

A friend is someone you tell the truth to, but Susie stops herself from doing that because the truth is, she’s not going to quit worrying.

“I wish I could be happy for you,” Susie says later, after they’ve finished their tea, along with the entire bag of cookies.

“Try to be,” March says, as she walks Susie to the door, then out to the porch.

March throws her arms around her old friend, and they stand there for a while, even though the weather has taken a turn and is much colder than had been predicted. All along the stone fences, the bittersweet berries have become orange. People will soon be covering their beds with their heaviest quilts, their warmest blankets. Cats won’t be forced out for the night, and those people in town who take their dogs for a late walk will see their breath form into clouds. Susie Justice will have to clear the frost off her windshield with the palm of her hand before she gets into her truck. As she drives away, she’ll roll down her window. She’ll bite her tongue and say no more; she’ll simply wave to March, who’s out there on the porch, dressed only in her jeans and her sweater, with no coat and no gloves and no protection from the cold.

15

Richard Cooper arrived today, in spite of a storm that was rattling up and down the East Coast. Ken Helm picked him up at Logan, and later that evening, at the bar of the Lyon Cafe, Ken tells people he would have recognized Richard anywhere. Sure, Richard’s not a kid anymore, but he looks the same anyway. He’s tall and thin, the way all the Coopers were, and he’s just as distracted as ever, although he can certainly tell a good joke, Ken Helm will attest to that. Richard Cooper’s got thousands of bug jokes he’s picked up at entomology conferences. He’s got a Why did the beetle cross the road? series which cracks up his students completely, although right now he tends to favor tick jokes. What’s the difference between a tick and a lawyer? he asked Ken Helm as they were driving up on I-95. It’s one he heard at a conference in Spokane last winter. The tick drops off after it’s sucked your blood.

Richard’s students appreciate him for more than his jokes. They respect him for all those aspects of his personality which most annoy March. He gets lost in what he does and can discuss a single topic, a variety of fungus-inhabiting Tenebrionidae, for instance, for hours. He’s too kindhearted, and doesn’t stand up for himself. As a graduate student, several discoveries he made in the field were claimed by his adviser, but Richard never cared about such things as who gets credit—it’s the discovery that matters to him. It’s doing the right thing. When he believes in something, he won’t back down. He’s tenacious as hell when he has to be, not unlike the trout-stream beetle, which will cling to anything, defying icy streams and swift currents in order to get where it is convinced it must go.

This clarity, this single-mindedness of purpose, is the reason why Belinda inherited Guardian Farm and Richard was left with nothing. His father was trying to teach him a lesson about obedience, and before Mr. Cooper could reverse his rash decision to disinherit his son both he and Richard’s mother were killed at the turn onto Route 22. For all these years he’s been away, Richard has only come back for funerals. His parents. His sister. His sister’s only child. Now they have laid Judith Dale to rest in the same cemetery, and Richard plans to pay his respects at the grave site. But he doesn’t have long to do so. It’s late Friday afternoon when he arrives, and he has to present a lecture to his graduate seminar on Monday morning. He hasn’t asked his neighbors to feed the stray cat living in his garage or bring in his mail. He has his return ticket for the noon plane on Sunday, and he’s made reservations for March and Gwen as well. Just in case.