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hero. He was taller than most men she’d seen, had more hair than most—thick, silvery hair—and redder cheeks. Her mother used to say he was ruddy and robust, as he eyed himself in the mirrored door of the armoire. And when his bow tie was neatly knotted and his tuxedo jacket spread smoothly across his shoulders, Pam could see it for herself. He looked grand, like Wendy Darling’s father in
Peter Pan
.
    Pam knew her mother liked him best when he was all dressed up and they were going out. “To see and be seen,” Patricia used to tell Pam. “It’s very important. Your father’s name is just becoming known. One day he’ll be a very important man in this town.”
    “What do you mean?” Pam would ask, a little unsure because the look in her mother’s eyes suggested that things might change, and Pam didn’t want that. She liked her life the way it was. She couldn’t imagine how things could get better.
    “He’ll be wealthy, for one thing.”
    “Isn’t he now?”
    “Now we’re comfortable.”
    “But we have two houses. Melissa Gentile said that makes us rich. She doesn’t have two houses.”
    “But the one that she has is far nicer than ours.”
    “I like ours.”
    “Melissa’s is bigger. Hers is an estate, with lots of land.”
    “We have lots of land in Timiny Cove, and our house there is the nicest one in the whole town.”
    Patricia grunted. “Timiny Cove is dirty. It’s shabby and poor.”
    “I like Timiny Cove,” Pam argued, though from an early age she learned that she wouldn’t change her mother’s mind on the matter of Timiny Cove. “What else is Daddy going to do?”
    “Besides make lots of money? He’s going to have an office that’s even fancier than the one he has now. He may even own the building, and if he doesn’t own that one, he’ll own others. Real estate is a good investment. It’s a good way to make money.”
    “But if he already has lots of money, why does he need more?”
    “Security,” Patricia said in a way that left no doubt about its importance. “You’re a very lucky little girl, Pamela. You don’t know what it’s like to be without. I do. I remember when I had to wear the same pair of shoes for three years even though my feet had outgrown them after one. I remember when my mother used to send me to the butcher’s shop for a small bit of stew meat, knowing that I didn’t have enough money but hoping that the butcher would take pity on us and leave the extra piece or two in the bundle. I remember . . .”
    Coming from her father, the “I remember” stories were warm and fun. In spite of the hardships he described, there was a fondness in his voice for the time in his life when he’d made the best of the low cards he’d been dealt. There was nothing warm or fun or fond in Patricia’s voice when she spoke of the old days. Her tone was hard. Everything about her was hard when she spoke of the old days, and if Pam had been leaning against her, that was the time when she would get up and move to sit on the floor or wander around the room. Her mother wasn’t happy when she talked of the past. Sometimes she wasn’t much happier when she talked of the present.
    “I never had any security until I met your father. We have some now, but not enough. Real estate is the future. I’m going to have your father talk with Franklin Dowd at the symphony dinner on Thursday night. Franklin has done well for himself in the last few years.”
    Pam was too young to know who Franklin Dowd was, why real estate was the future, or what the necessity was for stockpiling assets. But she was sensitive to simple emotions, attuned to facial expressions and tones of voice. Just as she knew that her mother grew agitated when she talked business with her father, so she knew that Eugene was correspondingly complacent. He agreed with Pam. His life was just fine. He loved the things money could buy and availed himself of them as he pleased, but he was happiest and smiled the most