Mrs. Thicke’s small, round face wrinkled in thought, as though Curiosity had spoken to her in a language she didn’t know, but needed to understand. Then her expression cleared as the underlying request revealed itself to her.

“Oh, sure. I’m just finished here. I’ll go across and see if my sister needs any help; she’s baking this morning. If that’s agreeable?”

Lily nodded, because there was a knot in her throat. For such a long time she had wished for these women to talk to, and time to talk, and privacy. But first she would show them the house, which she assumed they knew better than she did. She had been so tired the night before that she had gone to bed without taking in anything at all.

It was a very pleasing house, carefully planned and built with a great deal of attention to small details. Cupboards and shelves and drawers everywhere she looked, carved lintels and a beautiful tiled oven that was fed, very cleverly, from a grate in the kitchen next to the wood box.

The three of them walked at Curiosity’s pace, from hall to parlor to bedchamber, to the small dining room and finally to the study.

To give you another reason to come home, Ethan had written. There’s a study with good light; it would serve as a studio.

The room would be sunny indeed—if the sun ever came out again. And there were cubbyholes and shelves enough for her supplies.

Hannah said, “Ethan likes to build with somebody particular in mind.”

“Ma didn’t put him up to this—” Lily gestured around herself.

“No, she did not,” Curiosity said. “But I’m glad Ethan did all this without being asked. That boy has got a feeling for family. I have rarely seen the like.”

They settled in the parlor, where Ethan had hung some framed drawings—Lily’s own work, some of it fifteen years old and more. When she was still feeling her way along and learning the shape of the world. It was like seeing through her own girlhood eyes.

“Snug,” Curiosity said. She lowered her head as if she were looking at Lily over the top of spectacles. “So you planning to stay put for a while?”

“Oh, yes,” Lily said.

Hannah smiled at her with such kindness and understanding that Lily felt herself relaxing.

“Well then.” Curiosity looked around the parlor with satisfaction. Finally her gaze came back to Lily and settled there. “So tell us, is it that you cain’t catch, or you cain’t keep?”

In her surprise Lily expelled a soft puff of air and then a small laugh, which triggered a bigger one. In response, her nephew let out a husky chuckle from deep in his lungs. It was such a pure and natural sound that it set them all off, and then Birdie came in to see what she had missed and what they were all laughing at, and really, did they need to treat her like a child? She understood quite a lot; they should realize that much.

Hannah sent her off with the baby and orders to see that he went down for his nap on Lily’s bed. Birdie took him with a resigned sigh. At the door she said, “Lily, your trunks aren’t unpacked yet.”

“Go ahead,” Lily said. “You can sort through whatever interests you.”

“But keep an eye on that child,” Curiosity added. “Or he will roll right off that bed and put a dent in the floorboards.”

And then the three of them were alone again. Lily felt at ease, the one thing she had not expected to feel when this subject was finally raised. There was the vaguest sense of embarrassment and even anger way down deep—that these women who had borne their children so easily would sit in judgment of her, who could not. Or would not; she could tell them what she liked and they would take her word. She might claim that she and Simon had decided that they didn’t want children. That thought stayed with her for no more than a second; she was superstitious enough not to tempt the fates.

They were watching her. An old black woman who had been as much as a grandmother for all Lily’s life, and her half sister Hannah, who had been Birdie’s age when Lily and Daniel were born.

“I think it’s both,” Lily said finally. “I have—” she hesitated over the word, and decided that the alternatives were not very appealing. “I have caught three times since I’ve been—married.” Since before I was married, she corrected herself, but silently. “Three times that I’m sure of. And I lost each of them very early on.”

“And this time?” Hannah said. “How far along are you this time?”

Lily blinked. “How do you—how did you—”

Curiosity said, “Between Hannah and me we got close to a hundred years experience taking care of womenfolk. I don’t think there’s much we ain’t run across. I myself have seen a fair number of women who couldn’t bear for one reason or another. Sometimes just because they just didn’t know how the business was supposed to go.”

Hannah and Lily looked at each other, and then at Curiosity.

“You mean they didn’t know—” Lily bit her lip.

“That’s right,” Curiosity said. “They didn’t know nothing. I won’t tell you who this was, and I don’t think you could guess. It was a long time ago, a young married girl comes to me. A little bit of a thing, no more than nineteen. She came to ask for could I give her some tea or pills to make a baby come along? So I set down with her and ask her a few things. Oh, yes, she says to me. She love her husband something fierce. He so kind and considerate. So I come right out and ask her, how often do you two have relations?