“It’s dark,” Elisha was shouting. “Dark outside!” And then Gregoire heard the kitchen door bang, the murmur of Judy’s voice quieting him. Greg wanted to move into another room, further away, and he disliked himself for it. The boy couldn’t help it, after all.

Leon’s girl, that Gwennie, came into the room. “Hello, my dear,” Greg said. “Did you have a nice time outside?”

She stopped, turned her head slowly, and gave him a silent look of contempt that swept him from toe to brow. If he didn’t know his mother was still alive and well he’d swear Maman’s spirit was crouched behind those green eyes. Then she smiled and drew in her breath to say something and… he knew that smile. He remembered it from his childhood. It was like someone cocking the hammer of a pistol.

“Mind your manners, girl” he snapped, before she could speak, and he turned to walk into the next room.

He was becoming a mean old man, impatient with children. He was still a bit off-balance over what Elisha had said to him.

He’d driven Felicia and the boy back from the cemetery in Tel’s car, and he’d been fine, just fine until they got out and started walking towards the house.

Then he’d suddenly remembered his last visit at Thanksgiving, when they arrived for the feast at Leon and Marion’s, Tel proudly gesturing at the Leon’s home as they walked up the walk, going on and on about how perfect it was for entertaining, how Leon was a tremendous success, had turned out well, more than well…

And now… Greg had to stop, just for a moment, get a hold of himself because he could feel grief grab him by the throat.

Elisha had stopped too, and was watching him.

“Oh Uncle Greg,” Elisha had said sadly. He’d moved closer and looked at Greg as though seeing him for the first time.

“I feel so sorry for you. You have a big nose.”

At least Felicia had been amused.

It was the first time he’d seen her smile since he’d arrived.

Yes, Greg supposed, he did have a big nose. But nobody had ever complained about it before.

In the big parlor, Marion and Felicia were deep in conversation on the sofa.

Felicia glanced at him, then said something to Marion and rose to her feet.

As she walked past him towards the powder room, ‘Sha reached out and squeezed his arm affectionately. Then she ducked her head as if to hide a smile and moved on.

“Greg,” Marion said.

“We’ve not had much of a chance to talk,” she said. “How are you doing”

He shrugged. “It’s not an easy time, but I am as well as can be expected. How are you doing? And Leon?”

“Like you, we’re both well as can be expected. It’s Laurette we are worried about. Mama and I were just talking about her. Your sister won’t talk to us.”

He’d noticed Laurette was not in the room, but he’d assumed she was somewhere about, hovering over Artiste. “Not even to you?” he asked, frowning. He knew she and Marion were close friends. They always had their heads together at family dos.

“Could you go speak to her? I think… I think she’s a little lost. Maybe she’ll talk to you.”

The first place to look was the little parlor. He’d heard Artist’s voice as he’d passed it, and where Artiste was… Greg stuck his head in to see his brother-in-law deep in conversation with Bill, Brigitte’s husband. Sounded like serious stuff. “The list is longer than we thought it would be,” Bill was saying, “and we may have to put a bit more in the budget, but…”

They were talking about that project for underpriviliged kids. Free Milk, that’s what it was. Both Tel and Laurette had mentioned it in their last letters to Greg. He stepped back, but not before he looked at Artiste’s hands. His brother-in-law was resting them on his knees now, and his right hand seemed to gripping his knee slightly. It was the same hand that had the tremor. Greg had at church noticed how badly it shook as Artiste reached for a missal.

Laurette was not there.

She used to go outside when she was a girl and in tears. She liked to sit under the stars and listen to the sounds of the night. Greg glanced through the window out onto the deck.

He walked out and took his place on the settle beside Laurette.

“Sister,” he said, after a moment.

When she spoke, it was in the language of their childhood.

“I can’t cry anymore, Gregoire. I am empty.”

“It is natural,” He replied in the same tongue. He looked at her for a moment, then cleared his throat. “We knew this day was coming. We knew it would be soon.”

“Yes,” she sighed. “All the old trees are falling.”

“I was going to say something to your husband,” Greg said. “But he and Bill seemed to be talking about serious matters.”

“The Free Milk Committee,” she said. “They will talk about it for hours if I let them. I don’t like Artiste to get too tired, but it’s so important to him. It makes him so happy.”

“It’s important to you too, isn’t it?” Greg said, “I understand you were the one who brought the problem to their attention.”

Laurette turned towards Greg with a touch of her old briskness, the way she always looked when she brushed aside a subject she considered unimportant.

“Artiste is ill,” she said. “It is Parkinson’s. Dr. Graves told us last week. It is not so bad, just yet, but it frustrates him terribly.”

“Laurette I… This is awful. Just awful. Have you…” He struggled to think of a way to say it.

“Made arrangements for when he has no more control over his body? When his mind is gone? Not yet, but Artie knows. He is a good son, and he will help us, and Mimi and Lucas. Even Ella. You need have no fear of that.”

“And you, Sister? How are you doing?”

“I am worried, Brother.”

“Well, of course, but Laurette, you know, you surely know that Liana and I would not leave you alone with this. If you ever need us with you, all you have to do is ask, and we’ll be there in minutes.”

She shook her head impatiently. “It is not just that we are all getting old and failing. Of course we are. How else should our stories end? But something is wrong. Something is wrong in our house,” she said.

“You mean in Pond House?”

She nodded. “It began a few years ago, but it’s been getting worse. Mainly it’s water. Sea water. It keeps getting in.”

“You are very close to the water.”

“So close that I should keep finding the bathtub and sinks filled almost to over flowing with it? So close that I find the kitchen counter soaked and the room smelling like the sea? The bedroom floor covered with wet, sandy footprints. Of bare feet?”

“I am on old woman, Gregoire. Do I frolic on the beach anymore? Does Artiste?”

She sighed. “And now, things are being moved about. Artiste’s things.”

“Some weeks ago, at breakfast, he complained he couldn’t find his fountain pen, that nice one the congregation gave him. He was so upset and frustrated about it. His temper is shorter than it used to be.

“He kept asking me if I’d been at his desk. Of course, I hadn’t. I never interfere with his desk unless it’s to dust or straighten.”

I got up to get some milk from the icebox, and there it was. Artiste’s pen, lying on the top shelf next to the cream.

“Of course, I gave it to him immediately. I can’t lie to my husband. I hoped he would laugh.”

“He didn’t. He got very, very quiet, Gregoire. He looked at me, and I would have given anything to know what he was thinking. But I was afraid to ask.”

“Could he have put it there?”

“No. I don’t think so. But I believe he was afraid he did, was trying to remember. I fear he is losing confidence in himself.”

“And then last week after church… He keeps on his desk one of Artie’s old toys, a carved horse. Poor Pinny bought it from Glaspell’s when she learned she was pregnant, so it means a great deal to Artiste.”

“We got home that afternoon and it was gone. It turned up in the back garden, on the grass in front of his memorial to Pinny.”

“When I went out there, he turned towards me and asked, ‘Did you do this?’ His face, Gregoire…”

“Have you spoken to her?”

“I have tried. She will not show herself or talk to me. Not so much as a shadow of a glimpse, not so much as a whisper. She just makes her presence known.”

Laurette looked down and for the first time her voice shook. “Moving Artiste’s things, soaking the house with seawater… It is mockery, Gregoire. I think she knows he will soon be with her again. And she hates me. She hates me for being with Artiste.”

“Oh Laurette, surely not. That does not sound like Pinny Macana.”

“She was a suicide, Gregoire. The pregnancy changed her. She was sick in the end, sick like her mother.”

“We don’t know that. Kitty was there when it happened, and she always insisted it was an accident.”

“I used to believe that too.”

Greg thought for a moment.

“You must leave, Sister. The both of you. That house has never been a good place, anyway. Everyone knows it’s always been unlucky.”

“Artiste does not see it that way,” said Laurette. “He loves Pond House. I can’t ask him to leave now, of all times.

“Oh, the sainted Artiste!” Greg exclaimed. “I always thought it was morbid, Laurette, so unhealthy, the way he clings to the past. After Felda died, I wasn’t at my best, but did I build some shrine to her in the back yard and moon around that place reading scripture for the rest of my life? Would you have allowed me to behave so stupidly?”

“And if I’d remarried, I certainly wouldn’t have expected my second wife to live in Felda’s shadow, in the house I’d shared with her. Come on, you know as well as I do that’s just asking for trouble. Sister, you can’t stay there. You will tell your husband you are unhappy there. You will make arrangements to move him to the other side of the island. You will get out of there, if I have to…”

“I will not uproot him now Gregoire.” She looked at him and shook her head. “Such a typical man, you are, Brother. You ask how I am doing, I tell you, and immediately you start issuing orders. I will this, I will that? You sound like Tel talking to one of his children.”

Greg smiled.

“Do I? Well, Sister, you are right, as always. I am sorry. It’s just that you are still my little mother, and I want things to be good for you. I want you to be happy.”

“I am happy. But we are all old, Gregoire, and there are realities we can’t escape.”

They looked out at the lights of the town. Greg thought of nights when he was a boy, when he’d followed his sister out to the back garden and sat beside her, looking at the ocean and listening to the crickets, the nightbirds. The water was black like a sky without stars, except for a ship they’d seen once, moving silently across the water, around towards the bay, its lamps reflected in the water around it.

Now they looked out on a city bright with electric lights. There were crickets, but also faint music from the room behind them, the occasional sound of a car.

But that other moment — it seemed so real. So close. He could even smell the recently turned soil of Maman’s garden, smell the salty air of the sea, the faint whiff of wood fires.

“The face of Le Bon Dieu,” Laurette said softly, “is not always beautiful to us.”

“No,” Greg said quietly. “It certainly is not.”