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expecting, after that lovely tea.” This whole house, from the people to the décor to the food, was a fascinating contradiction of the old and the new.
    “Let me guess,” Lizzie chuckled, “you were expecting roast beef.”
    “Actually, yes.”
    “I rather like roast beef,” Ruth mumbled, her mouth set in a tight line.
    “Lizzie cooks Italian food as well as any Italian. I have always loved real Italian food. Can we have pasta tomorrow?” Moira asked.
    “Of course.”
    Elaine cut herself a sliver of the blue cheese and popped it into her mouth. Stilton. Real English Stilton. Comfortable at this table already, feeling like she didn’t have to be unnaturally polite, she served herself a much larger slice. “Do you live here all year, Moira?”
    “Yes, I do.” The old woman picked up a grape in her crooked fingers and lifted it to her mouth with great care. “I love it here and I’m quite comfortable. If I went back to Toronto, I’d only end up boarding with one of my sisters like a charity case, but here I can have my own household.”
    “Does your family come up much?”
    “On occasion. My sisters’ grandchildren like to spend a good deal of their summers at the cottage, as I did when I was a girl. And they are welcome indeed. It’s wonderful to have children underfoot; they do bring the old place back to life. The family can usually be expected for holidays. They were all here Labor Day weekend. When….” Moira coughed.
    Elaine looked around the table. Alan made patterns of wine in his glass, Lizzie ate her soup with great concentration, and Ruth watched Elaine.
    “When…” she prompted.
    Moira took a deep breath. “When, sadly, Donna died. I should warn you: They will all be here for Thanksgiving. Bit of a chore, really. But I can’t tell them to stay away, even if I wanted to. Under the terms of my father’s will, my two sisters and I own the cottage jointly. Fortunately for my peace of mind they don’t like to be far from the city lights for long. In that way, as in so much else, they haven’t changed a bit from when they were girls.”
    “If I can put up with them, Moira, so can you,” said Lizzie, with a stiff laugh, clearly relieved that the conversation had moved on.
    “You’ll earn your wages this year, with that crowd expecting a Thanksgiving feast,” Alan said, the green eyes twinkling with mischief.
    Lizzie tossed her head. She was young and quite pretty, shining blond hair tied back in a bouncy ponytail, perfect teeth set into a wide and generous mouth, large brown eyes and the lingering traces of a summer’s tan. Only her excess weight threw her out of the modern definition of beautiful. “Like I don’t every other day of the year, looking after you bunch.”
    Moira chuckled. It was a delightful laugh, the tinkling of fine chimes in a warm wind. She had a bowl of soup in front of her, but didn’t lift her spoon once. She nibbled at the edges of the piece of cheese, and ate a couple of grapes. Her lips touched the rim of her wineglass after their toast, but the level didn’t go down, and the glass wasn’t picked up again.
    Conversation swirled around the table, light and friendly, after the brief awkward pause at the mention of death. Lizzie slipped out to the kitchen to refill the soup tureen and fetch more bread and cheese, and Alan brought in another bottle of the excellent wine. Even Ruth relaxed and smiled and joined the conversation in brief spurts. The dogs continued to scratch and howl in the background but no one else seemed to be terribly bothered by the racket. Talk was mostly about the neighbors—who was still here and who had closed up for the season—and chores that were waiting to be done in preparation for winter. Alan mentioned that he wanted to cut down a couple of big branches that had died over the summer and were threatening the driveway. Lizzie told everyone that she had received a letter from her cousin, traveling through Europe, and that the girl