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see you ladies in the morning,” he said, heading for the stairs. He left us alone.

Chapter Five
    Josie rose and pulled a hassock closer to the sofa. She sat down, took a Virginia Slim from an elegant gold case, and lit it. She put up her feet, laid her head back, and took a deep drag. She looked at me silently, as though I were a specimen under a microscope.
    “I suppose I should have told you,” I looked at the floor, drew circles with my foot. “All the details. About the suicide, I mean.”
    She blew a perfectly formed smoke ring, watched it dissipate toward the ceiling.
    “I really, really wish you didn’t smoke,” I said finally.
    “And I really, really wish you’d never married the dirt farmer.”
    “How can you say that? Think that?”
    “Are you crazy, Lottie? I don’t care how great you think he is. I’ll admit that he’s a different man than I thought he was, but there’s enough baggage in this family to fell an ox. Which you are not. You have a much frailer personality than you would like to believe.”
    “That simply is not true. You’re the one who’s hung back, protected yourself. Fiddled while Rome burned.”
    She quietly shook her head. “Your insistence on jumping into the middle of everything is because you cannot,
cannot,
bear not fixing things. Making them right. Think a minute, Lottie. You kept calling this woman over and over to get her to change her story. Couldn’t let it go. Couldn’t stand the friction between the sisters.”
    “Oh, must we fight? I wanted everything to be perfect when you met Elizabeth and Bettina.”
    I laughed ruefully, hearing my own words in the light of her lecture.
    “Do you have some decent scotch, Lottie? I don’t intend to drink your husband’s vile home brew ever again.”
    “That’s the only sensible idea I’ve heard all night.”
    I went into the kitchen and mixed us both drinks.
    Keith and I had met when I was working in the library at Fort Hays State University. Forsyth Library has priceless holdings of material about Germans from Russia, known as Volga Germans. Persons using this room always had to be under the scrutiny of university personnel. I had done my dissertation on ethnic groups, and eagerly volunteered for the monitoring job as it gave me access to the collections. Keith came in one day, asking for material on his family.
    Before then, I would have scoffed at the notion of love at first sight. But it happened. Happened to me. An old maid of thirty-one. I loved his grave sense of honor.
Gravitas
, the Romans called it. He was not a light man.
    I carried the drinks back into the living room.
    “How did it happen?”
    “She hanged herself. Elizabeth found her.”
    She took a long drag, closed her eyes for a moment.
    “Do any of them know about Mummy,” she asked. “Our own Lady Macbeth? I should think our own sunny childhood would be enlightening to your resident Queen Elizabeth. She who holds the patent on hard times.”
    “Keith knows Mom was an alcoholic, but I don’t think he realizes how much it affected us, or how well I understand how living with Regina’s instability scarred his kids. And him. But Keith’s a rock. Like Daddy was.”
    “Bingo.”
    I scowled. “Oh, go to hell.”
    “Be forewarned, Lottie. Queen Elizabeth is the kind of person who doesn’t like to be at a disadvantage. She may resent your seeing this side of her.”
    Tosca yipped, like she was in agreement. I started, spilled my drink, and hustled off for towels. “Back to the Ladies,” I said when I returned. “The Rubidoux girls. I’ll show you the story.”
    She smiled at my quick change of subject. I went to my briefcase and pulled out the working copy of Zelda’s story. She read it quickly. Her eyes widened. “My god, Lottie. I can’t believe anyone still thinks like this. It’s despicable.”
    “Confederate thinking,” I agreed. “Old South.”
    “May I take this back with me? I have a friend who does a lot of work with