The Secretary of War desires me to express his deep regret that your husband second lieutenant Leon Matthieu Duday has been reported missing in action since ten september over austria if further details or other information are received you will be promptly notified

Felicia started the portrait the evening after they got the telegram. It was the first she’d ever done of Leon. Getting him to stand still long enough to pose had always been impossible, and attempts had left him simmering with frustration and Felicia exasperated beyond words. She’d never liked using photographs, but she’d pulled one out, just to refer to occasionally. It was shaping up well as a painting.

That was all she would allow herself to think.

Tel had become uncharacteristically quiet. He still made speeches, shook hands, served as ably on the commitees he chaired as he did as club steward, but everyone noted he was less interested in small talk, no longer lingered after meetings to exchange jokes and gossip. His laugh was no longer as easy.

He carried with him the letter Greg had sent him. One passage he had read so often it was commited to memory. “Your son is no ordinary man, my brother. He is, of all your children, the best equipped to survive. He will return to us.”

Tel knew it was foolish, but he believed if Greg had faith Leon was alive, then Leon was alive. Call it superstition. Call it self-deception. Tel didn’t care. It kept him afloat.

He was no artist like his wife, but he revived a project he’d abandoned in despair years ago. Once again, he was spending hours bent over his work table, experimenting, mixing, leafing through the notes he’d begun keeping when he came of age. When Leon returned, Tel was determined to have a gift for him, something that would put everything right at last.

Marion was angry.

Not at anyone in the family, certainly. She worried terribly about Papa Duday and Felicia, longed for a return to how everyone had been before the telegram. Felicia’s elegant self-absorption had lost its crisp edge and Papa Duday’s stride its bounce. If the worst were to happen, Marion wondered if her in-laws could weather the blow.

She knew she would. That was the pity of it. Leon was her husband, the man she had sworn to love and honor. She had loved him and loved him still, remembered the nights they’d spent together with a longing that sometimes made her weak. But she had only known him for a little while, and his sporadic, often distant letters had not told her much about him. In the two years since he left, it was his parents she had grown to care for, fiercely, protectively.

Perhaps if she’d become pregnant and now had Leon’s child to raise, things would be different. But she wasn’t, and if Leon never came home, there would be no bridge of flesh and blood between her and the people she now loved most in all the world. She suspected that was why she sometimes felt herself tamping down a rage that threatened to burst out in tears and thrown objects.

It wasn’t fair to have only known her husband for two weeks.

Each evening, if she was at home, she went out to the balcony outside her room and watched the sunset. Sometimes it was to think. Most of the time, she took a vacation from thinking and just lost herself in the beauty of the sunset. Tonight was one of those times.

She heard a step nearby. “What a pretty sundown,” said Laurette. “I thought I’d get some fresh air before dinner. Do you mind if I join you?”

“I’m glad for the company,” Marion said. And two women stood in comfortable silence.

Laurette was the first real friend Marion had ever had. When Papa Duday told her about his twin, Marion had at first seen Laurette Macana as the heroine of a sad romance. Marion had even commented to him how heartbreaking she thought it was. To have worked as a servant all her life, and one so loyal and steadfast that she didn’t marry the man she loved until her elderly mistress had died! That was true unselfishness! Think of the children she and the Reverend Macana could have had!

Tel’s response to the notion that his twin was a tragic figure had been a brief, explosive laugh. “Marion, Laurette does exactly what Laurette wants to do,” he’d said. “She’s lucky that way.”

After a while Marion could see what he meant. It was hard to imagine Laurette Macana doing anything against her will. Of all the Dudays, Laurette was the one who most resembled the Island stereotype of the “Frenchy,” with her slightly sharp consonants, her occasional exclamations in French, her goodnatured, often earthy common sense. They’d truly become friends after the sick, unseen Grandpa Duday died a year ago and the Dudays had gathered for the funeral. It was Laurette who’d quietly updated Marion on the various relatives who’d shown up.

There was Brigitte Duday Scardino Quiller, Who was pretty and blonde and on her second husband, an important man who was currently Mainland, doing some sort of work in D.C. He has a nice gentleman, Laurette said, but not always in good health. “Helas, if she will insist on marrying tired old men,” Laurette had sighed. Marion suspected this chilly society lady was embarrassed by her more rough-edged father. She’d shown up at the funeral with her her son and daughter, two very well-behaved young people in who’d stuck close to their mother. They’d stayed in the cemetery only long enough for Brigitte to give her parents each a quick, frosty peck on the cheek.

And then there was Laurette’s youngest brother, Gregoire, who now lived in California.

He’d arrived for the occasion with his daughter, Liana, who resembled Laurette but had none of her gentleness and tact. Based on some of the things her father had said about him, and what she’d heard from the other women at the Ladies’ Society, Marion had pictured Gregoire as tall, dashing and seductive, like Warren William.

In fact he turned out to be a bearded, ordinary-looking man slightly soft around the edges and only a little taller than his brother.

It wasn’t until she sat next to him at dinner that she understood his reputation. From the moment he’d turned in his seat, looked at her, and said, “I understand my dear, that at last there is someone in his house who reads,” he’d made her feel as though she were most fascinating woman he’d ever met. They’d spent the entire meal talking about books, movies, and art, and while he knew much more about these things than Marion, he never once made her feel stupid or foolish.

She was, however, slightly alarmed by the constant bickering between Gregoire and his daughter. They spent much of their brief visit taking each other aside and quarreling in irritated undertones about how long they would stay.

“They’ve always done that,” Laurette had said, shrugging. “Don’t let it fool you. If you dare to criticize one in the hearing of the other, you’ll get your head taken off.”

Gregoire did manage to wring a very angry and graceless promise from his daughter that they would both fly home the day after the funeral. Which made Laurette laugh.

“He will be back,” Laurette had said.

“For another visit?”

“No. My brother will be back someday to stay. Maman wants Gregoire here.”

Grandmere Duday. Papa Duday’s mother. He and Felicia always spoke of her with their voices lowered slghtly, as though they thought she might be in the next room listening.

That day at the funeral was the one time Marion glimpsed her. At first she had been visible only as a slow moving, bent mass of black, her face and head covered by her widow’s veil. But then, at the cemetery, Marion had heard a deep breath and a muttered exclamation in French before Grandmere pulled off the mass of black netting. “Too hot,” she’d said.

She’d stood for a moment, her head down, her face set with grief.

And then briefly, she’d looked at Marion and Marion, who had been opening her mouth to introduce herself, felt struck dumb.

Marion had often heard the expression “gimlet-eyed.” Now she knew what it meant. Madame Duday took Marion in and dismissed her with a glance.

Grandmere Duday had turned, put her veil back on, and walked over to speak to her eldest son.

The sun had almost vanished, and distant trees were black against a red sky, when Laurette spoke again. “There is something I must tell you, something I am sorry to have to say. Your parents have left the island.”

Marion turned to look at Laurette, who was staring down as if ashamed. “I learned from someone in the congregation at Christ the Sailor,” Laurette said. “They barely even told your father’s flock before leaving. The house is empty. The Reverend Sittiford was offered a post somewhere in South Carolina. He’s replaced a younger man who’s joined up. I can find out where, exactly, if you wish it.”

“No,” Marion said. “It doesn’t matter.”

“You may not feel it does now, at this moment, but someday you may want to know.”

“Then let’s just say that right now, I don’t care to know,” said Marion. She sighed. “I have other things on my mind these days. Another family.” All Marion knew was that her life had changed for the better ever since her parents had disowned her. Thinking of them made her even more angry, and that was the last thing she needed right now.

“I will ask Artiste to find out,” said Laurette. “We will keep it to ourselves, but if you ever want to know more, just ask.”

“Thank you.”

“My brother got a letter today from Lamont.”

Marion smiled. “A good one?”

“It must have been. I could hear Tel laughing in his study this afternoon. He’ll read it to us all after dinner.”