It was not their usual day, their usual time, or their usual table, or even their usual dining room at The Rose. “A booth will make it easier to talk privately,” Shirley explained on the phone, and when Bridget thought about it, she was relieved. Lately she’d been feeling as though people were staring at her when she went out in public.

The booth Shirley chose was out of the way, and Brigitte was a litte sorry that they weren’t going to get Louie, their usual waiter. Still, it was such a lovely break, felt so normal to look across a table at her friend, chat about the children, eat the salad and eggs their waitress brought to them.

For a litte while, Bridget could forget her troubles and just be with her friend.

The serious talk didn’t start until they had finished their meal and were enjoying their sours.

“So Bridge,” Shirley said, “How are things? I mean seriously, how are you doing?”

“The main concern now, is keeping his pain under control.”

“How is that going?”

Bridget sipped her drink. “We do the best we can,” she said.

“Good days and bad days. Today is a good day. There’s pain, but it’s not unbearable, and he’s up and moving around. When I left he was sitting by the pool drinking his tonic.”

Shirley looked at her for a moment, tapping one finger on her glass. She seemed to be trying to decide what to say next.

“So,” she finally said. “He’s not bedridden.”

“No, not yet, thank God.”

“If you went with him, do you think he could travel?”

“Travel?” Brigitte wasn’t sure she’d even heard Shirley correctly. “No! Really, Shirl, that’s the last thing on our minds right now.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure!”

Shirley’s face was grave, slightly regretful.

“What are you getting at?” Brigitte asked.

“You know, all this could end if he just took one last trip to New York.”

“There’s no point in seeing another doctor,” said Brigitte.

“That’s not what I mean.”

They looked at each other. Bridget felt her face grow hot.

“No,” she said. “Shirley, I can’t believe you would even suggest that.”

“Suggest what, Bridge?” Shirley’s voice was sad, and she shook her head. “That he do the right thing? That he go to New York and tell the truth and make things right?

..Oh sweetheart,” she leaned forward and smiled at Bridget sadly.

“I know it’s hard to admit when you’ve made such a terrible, terrible mistake, but…”

“A mistake?”

“Bridget Duday, you know exactly what I am talking about! I mean that association of Bill’s with that communist, that wolf in sheep’s clothing, the Reverend Macana. Not to mention that that disaster of a free milk campaign!”

Again with the free milk campaign?

“How is it a disaster?”

“Oh come on, Bridget, face facts!”

“…You haven’t seen the paper this morning? You didn’t hear what they found out?”

Bridget felt sick. “No,” she said. “I haven’t.”

“…What are you talking about?”

Shirley sighed. “I really didn’t want to be the one who told you this but… A reporter at The Beacon did a little digging and talked to some of the recipients of your husband and the REVEREND’S oh-so-generous largesse.”

Again, Shirley paused, as if gathering her thoughts, struggling to find the right words.

“It was that Ballou girl, the one who went bad right after she left school. The reporter paid her a visit, and she had some very, very disturbing things to say about the conduct of the Reverend Macana and his wife. It seems that the day after she went there to pick up free milk, they showed up at her house together. Now, it’s possible, given the state of that man’s current senility, he didn’t really know what was going on, but that woman, that aunt of yours…” Brigitte knew that smirk. It was Shirley’s “I-told-you-so” expression.

Dear God in heaven, Brigitte thought, surely there hadn’t been some sort of improper advance made by Artiste? Or even by…

“That aunt of your’s had brought over an extra pint of cream. CREAM! Remember what I said all those months ago? And it didn’t stop there.”

“They’d also brought an ice-cream maker. And eggs. And some vanilla….”

Bridge wondered whether she had gone mad or Shirley had. It was as if Shirley had suddenly begun gravely and angrily reciting nursery rhymes.

“They spent the whole afternoon there making ice-cream,” Shirley continued. “They gave that woman ice-cream!”

Shirley stopped and looked at Bridget with the air of someone who had just performed a painful duty.

“I truly… I just don’t know what to say.” Bridget finally managed.

“We all learn from our mistakes, hon. It’s part of being an adult,” said Shirley.

“Is this a joke?” Bridget asked.

“Are you seriously telling me the scandal uncovered in today’s morning edition is that my Tante and her husband made ice-cream for someone?”

Shirley’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t play stupid! It wasn’t just ‘someone’. They rewarded a digusting little whore and her brat with dishes of ice-cream.”

“How lovely!,” Shirley exclaimed. “What a charming lesson! Have a bastard and you get some vanilla-peach ripple made to order! Oh yes, there’s an incentive to be moral!”

“I see what you mean. Now all the unmarried girls on the north side are going to run out and get pregnant so they can have free ice-cream.”

“You think they wouldn’t?”

“Good Lord, Shirley, how much do you think those people like ice-cream?”

“You know, I predicted this was going to be hard.” Shirley had begun pulling on her gloves. “I told them it wouldn’t be easy. But you’re my friend, Bridge, and as a friend, I thought I should at least try to make you see reason.”

“Them?”

Shirley had risen to her feet and had her purse in hand. “The Society for Island Pioneers.” She looked coolly down at Bridget. “I have defended you. For years. Did you know that? From the very first year, when I fought...fought…for your membership. But there’s only so much people are willing to overlook.”

Bridget had been with the Pioneers for over two decades, starting just after she married Manny. Weekly brunches with the committee, monthly teas, the work they’d all done together during the war… That, truly, was her life outside the home. Had she really been there only on Shirley’s sufferance?

“But, Shirley” she asked,”What exactly do they expect me to do?”

“Take a stand! Get Bill to do the right thing. Everyone knows he listens to you. If you used your influence, you could get him on a plane tomorrow. Or if it’s really not possible, if he’s too sick while he’s lounging around the pool to travel…”

“He’s not lounging…”

“Stop it, Bridge.”

You’ve got to show everyone you’re not on board with his embrace of… well, radicalism. Because that’s what it is. Pure, red, radicalism.”

“We’ve all been married on the committee. We all know what husbands are like. If you can’t actually stop him, you can at least talk to everyone and make it plain, beyond any doubt, that you’ve been dragged along against your will. Otherwise…” She shook her head. “I just don’t see how we can have you publicly identified as a member of the Committee. I’m sorry. I really am. Please think about it.

“Please,” Shirley said. “I value you so much as a friend,”

“I don’t want to lose you.”

And then she was gone.

After the phone call the other night from Cousin Lee, Judith had been so relieved she was almost light-headed. Today the euphoria had lifted slightly, but she no longer felt crushed, trapped. She could actually move, think of something else other than the door to the future she’d planned slamming in her face.

One route may have been shut to her, but another had opened. She would still get to Harvard.

But, that didn’t make everything all right. Dad was still sick, still in pain. Dad was still dying. And something had gone wrong with Mother.

When Mother had come home from the lunch with Shirley, Judy had expected her to be in better spirits — she usually was after seeing her friend. But she’d shut the door hard behind herself when she came in. When Dad came in later from his nap by the pool, she’d hugged him so tightly, and there was something in her eyes that worried Judy.

In the kitchen Mother banged pots and pans while she was cooking

“Are you all right?” Dad asked, as he joined them at the table, and she’d snapped “I’m fine!” without looking up.

Mother had tried to make conversation with Dad, over the meal, but you could hear the pain in her voice, tell she was thinking of things other than how well the herb garden was doing in the sideyard, and whether or not the renovations at the Spotswood boardwalk were an improvement.

Laurette arrived just as they were drying the dishes.

“I am so sorry to intrude,” Judy heard Laurette say to Mother. “But I need to see him. I need to talk to him.”

It looked to Judy as though Mother was thinking of refusing. Laurette must have suspected it too, because she said. “I will not stay longer than a few minutes. I promise.”

“Very well,” Mother said, irritably, and she led Laurette to the study.

By the time Mother returned to the kitchen, all the dishes were dried. “Thank you,” she said a bit absently. “Go study or read. I’ll wipe down the counters.”

Instead of going straight upstairs to his room, Elisha motioned to Judy to follow him into the living room. Being close to the television always seemed to make him feel better.

“Do you think,” he asked, “They would let me sleep in their room with them tonight?”

“You mean Mother and Dad?”

He nodded. “I could take my sleeping bag. I could sleep on the floor right next to Dad! I wouldn’t bother them. I promise.”

“But why?”

He shrugged, and looked past her. “What if Dad dies while he’s asleep?”

“Lish,” she said gently, “you need to sleep in your room. On a mattress. If you sleep on the floor, you’ll be all achey and tired the next day.”

“I won’t!” he shook his head hard. “I promise a thousand times I won’t!”

“Dad would be happier if he knew you were in your own bed under the covers at night,” said Judith. “That’s what I think. You want him to be happy, don’t you?”

He looked down, then back up at Judith.

“I don’t want him to be dead,” he said suddenly.

“I know. I don’t either.” He was in one of his moods. If she tried to put her arm around him, he’d step back and out of reach.

“We can’t always get what we want, can we?” he asked, looking at her as though he hoped she’d say it wasn’t true.

“No, darlin’,” she said. “we can’t.”

A little after 9:30, after Lish was in bed and asleep, while Judith was getting ready for bed, Mother knocked on her door. “Your father wants to talk to us,” she said.

He was sitting in his chair, an empty glass on the table next to him.

“I need to speak to you both about something very serious,” he said.

“It’s about a mistake I may have made.”

“As you know, Laurette was here this evening.”

She came to tell me that Artiste is very upset and concerned – which of course, means Laurette is also upset.”

He sighed. “The church… Well, they know it’s probably not going to survive after Artiste is gone. Too many powerful people want it to go away. Artiste and Laurette obviously aren’t happy about it, but that’s not what has them worried. What worries them are the people who helped them, trusted them. There are people who made anonymous donations, who never actually joined the congregation or volunteered, but sometimes came to meetings. Some of these people are public servants; Policemen. Teachers. Firemen. People who pick up garbage or clean the floor in Town Hall.”

“The Macanas are afraid these people will be named.”

“And then they might have to go to that mainland committee and name other names.”

“That loyalty oath,” said Mother.

“A loyalty oath?” Judith looked from Dad to Mother, puzzled.

“The Island Council decided to ask all public employees to sign a loyalty oath two years ago. A few didn’t. I refused. So did Miss Pascoe. But many did not refuse. Many couldn’t see the harm in signing it.”

“And now that Christ the Sailor is being smeared as Communist, it could be claimed these people violated their oaths by helping, or even just attending meetings. At the very least, they could lose their jobs.”

“I promised Laurette today — promised her —

“I would not allow that to happen.”

He let out a long breath and smiled sadly. “Now, here’s where I made my mistake.”

“Upstairs in the attic are notes I took at meetings a few years ago, meetings about things like repairing the church roof, raising funds for a Christmas toy drive, the Milk Committee… Those notes include details that could identify those people. Sometimes I even mentioned names.”

“I would feel much, much better if they were destroyed. Burnt.”

“If I still had the strength to climb the ladder up to the attic and dig around until I found those notes, I’d do it. But I don’t. So I’m asking you both.”

You don’t have to do it now, this instant, but if you could do it some time tomorrow…”

“We will find them,” said Mother. “And we’ll do the right thing.”

His smile was heartfelt and genuinely relieved. “Thank you, sweetheart. That’s all I need to know.” He let out another long, shaky breath.

“I’m going to sleep so much better tonight.”