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I rooted through the kitchen drawers until I calass of wine and took it out on the balcony The water was turning a luht faded from the sky, and the dark lavender of the coastline was a vivid contrast The sunset was a light show of deep pink and sal, as if by a dio

There was a tap at h the information I’d collected, at this point, was scant I screwed the lid on the white-out and went to the door

Ann was standing in the corridor "I wondered what time you wanted supper"

"Anytime’s fine with me When do you usually eat?"

"Actually, we can suit ourselves I fed Mother early Her meal schedule’s pretty strict, and Pop won’t eat until later, if he eats at all I’ I hope you don’t object to fish"

"Not at all Sounds great You want to join lass of white wine first?"

She hesitated "I’d like that," she said "How’s Bailey doing? Is he okay?"

"Well, he’s not happy, but there’s not o toet in"

"Check with Clemson He can probably set it up It shouldn’t be hard Arraignht-thirty"

"I think I’ll have to pass on that Mother has a doctor’s appointet back in ti okay Could he go with you?"

"Sure No problelass for her and refilled my own She settled on the couch, while I sat a few feet away at the tiny kitchen table whereat her ith an odd cast to her lass of liniment

"I take it you’re not crazy about Chardonnay," I reetically "I don’t drink very often Bailey’s the only one who ever developed a taste for it"

I thought I’d have to puround infor a quick family time line The Fowlers, she said, had never been enthusiastic about alcohol She claimed this was a function of herwith the dour funda to Ann, Royce had been born and raised in Tennessee and the dark strains of his Scots heritage had rendered him joyless, taciturn, and wary of excess He’d been nineteen at the height of the Depression,west on a succession of boxcars He’d heard there ork in the oilfields in California, where the rigs were springing up like a eles He’d met Oribelle, en route, at a dime-a-dip dinner at a Baptist church in Fayetteville, Arkansas She was eighteen, soured by disease, resigned to a life of scriptures and insulin dependency She orking in her father’s feed store, and the most she could look forward to was the annual trip to the mule market in Fort Sht, having hopped off a freight in search of a hot ht of hi in the door, a broad-shouldered youth with hair the color of heh the supper line, piling his plate high with macaroni and cheese, which was her specialty By the end of the evening, she’d heard his entire life story and she invited hi all his uest of the Baileys for teeks, during which she was in such a fever pitch of horone into ketoacidosis and had had to be briefly hospitalized Her parents took this as evidence that Royce’s influence icked They talked to her long and hard about her giving hi would dissuade her from the course she had set She was determined to marry Royce When her father opposed the courtship, she took all the money set aside for secretarial school and ran off with him That was in 1932

"It’s odd for h passion," I said

She smiled "Me too: I should show you a photo She was actually quite beautiful Of course, I wasn’t born until six years later-1938-and Bailey ca five years after me Whatever heat they felt was burned out by then, but the bond is still strong The irony is, we all thought she’d die long before hio first"

"What’s actually wrong with him?"