There you are: a perfect specimen of Restoration thinking. My mother does exactly what her nation asks of her. For many years, she hung a tricolor from her window; now it's a white f lag with three golden f leurs-de-lis at the center. The eagles and bees that once graced her porcelain cups have given way to the royal arms. The only thing she has that even hints of the past is a bud vase with a single gilt N. She keeps it in a secret niche in the drawing room and never puts f lowers in it.

"When Father was a physician," I say, keeping my voice light, "what sorts of people did he treat?"

"Oh, all sorts, I expect."

"He wouldn't have-I was only wondering if he might have had occasion to-to treat an aristocrat. Someone like that."

The silence bears down.

"Perhaps even a member of the royal family," I suggest.

She snatches up a butter knife. "Hector," she says, "I can't say I like your line of questions. Whoever your father knew or didn't know-a quarter of a century ago-can be of no concern of yours." "It is a concern."

A statement of fact, that's all I intend, but something startles her eyes back toward mine. The scrubbing subsides, and in a dark brown tone, she says:

"That horrible convict."

"No."

"He's put you up to this."

"Mother."

"Badgering you about your poor father."

"It's me asking, Mother. No one else."

She turns away from me now. As far as she can manage without actually leaving.

"Shame on you, then, Hector."

"Shame," I repeat in a low voice. "Why shame? If Father led such a quiet, such an unimpeachable life, what shame could there be in knowing more about him?"

A long silence before she coils herself back round.

"Your father was a good man. That's all you need to know."

She's holding my eye now-the better to gauge her missile. On it comes, low and deadly.

"He certainly never squandered his family's assets on a common whore."

The strange part? Instead of cowing me, it frees me. Something in my head turns lambent and still, and I draw out a chair, and I sit in it, and I look at her, and because all the niceties have been burned away, I can stay looking at her, I can stare her out of all countenance.

And when I speak, how gently my voice ripples.

"It's true what you said before, Mother. I've lived here all my life. And I've never really known the first thing about Father. Or you. Of course, I never worried so much about him because no one else seemed to know him either. You least of all. I guess I just assumed he didn't want to be known."

With great deliberation, she strips the muslin sheaths from her arms.

"And now? Now I think I was wrong, Mother. I think there was something in him that didn't want to be known. Something happened to him. A long time ago. And he couldn't square it away, and he couldn't forget it. Of course, I don't have any proof. But I think you might, Mother. I think you know exactly what happened."

There is a kind of woman who will throw tears in your way when you draw too near. Eulalie was one of those; Mother, to her credit, has never been. To intruders, she has only one answer: rage.

And this is its truest expression. A raucous, fast-descending cry, like a crow rustled from a tree.

"I have nothing more to say to you on this subject! "

And as I walk out the door, she sends a last cry after me, and this one carries, to my ear, a note of ragged hope-as if it could erase an entire conversation.

"Your father was a good man! "

T en minu tes late r, I'm standing in the foyer. In my coat and hat, my hand resting on the doorknob. Ready for my evening walk, you see-and not ready. Beneath those counterpulses, the knob actually trembles.

And then I hear a cough. Cough doesn't quite cover it. A barking, heaving, chest-splitting sound.

It's Father Time. Leaning against our grandfather clock.