I brewed some coffee, shuddering at Regina’s protest that instant would have been fine. After I’d poured a cup for each of us, adding cream and sugar to Martin’s niece’s, I listened to Regina blather about the long drive, the baby, her mother’s condo, her Aunt Cindy…

“Oh, I’m sorry!” she apologized. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“Aunt Cindy” was Martin’s first wife, the mother of his only child, Regina’s cousin Barrett. I sighed internally, still kept my smile pasted on, and assured Regina that she needn’t apologize. A little corner of my brain repressed an urge to ask Regina why she wasn’t at Aunt Cindy’s instead of Uncle Martin’s, if Aunt Cindy was so great.

“Did you see Barrett on TV the other night?” Regina said enthusiastically. “Boy, didn’t he look handsome? I always call all my friends when Barrett’s going to be on television.”

Regina was digging at all my sore-or rather, sensitive- spots. Barrett had not come to our wedding. He’d been up for a big part, he’d told his dad, the implication clear that a new part for Barrett was more important than a new wife for his father.

And he hadn’t visited Lawrenceton in the three-plus years Martin had lived here.

But he’d found the time to come to Regina’s wedding, where he’d managed to dodge us with an almost unbelievable agility. Martin had told me he’d had a drink with Barrett in the hotel bar after I’d gone up to bed the night before the wedding, and that had been the contact he’d had with his son-whose career he’d been subsidizing.

I was beginning to wish Martin’s only niece had stayed in Ohio. I was also beginning to puzzle at the reason behind her visit. She was being mighty evasive.

“Regina,” I said, when she’d finished blathering about Barrett’s career, “I’m delighted that you came to visit, but this evening, just for a couple of hours, may be a little awkward. Your uncle and I have a long-standing dinner engagement, and though we could call and tell the Lowrys we have to take a rain check, I’m afraid-”