“It’s just something Sonia Baker told me, a small detail. One that turns out to be true.”

She inhales and shakes her head again. I’m apparently a lost cause.

I retrieve the shopping bags, head for the front door, and call back over my shoulder. “I know, Geraldine. I know. It doesn’t mean a thing.”

If Luke ever discovers the taste of a home-cooked meal, I’m doomed. How he grew to be six feet two is anyone’s guess. Good mothers prepare meals for their children, I’ve heard, but I’m not one of them. I do, of course, arrange for takeout. I’m a mediocre mother, anyhow.

It’s almost nine by the time I get to our Windmill Lane cottage. I stopped at the office after I left Geraldine, to ask the Kydd to do some background work for Sonia while Harry and I are in trial. The Kydd was way ahead of me. He filed a written request this morning, he said, for copies of Howard Davis’s active files. We should receive the first batch by midday tomorrow. Round one of eligible suspects.

Luke always has the woodstove blazing by the time I get home on winter nights, and tonight is no exception. The sweet smell of burning bark envelops me in the driveway, a warm welcome home. I trudge through the packed snow toward the back of our cottage. The pounding surf of the Atlantic is just beyond the dunes, a few yards away, and I have to brace myself against salty gusts of wet winter wind.

I climb the wooden stairs to the back deck and the kitchen door. During the winter months, our front door is permanently sealed. I’m happy to be home at last. And I’m fully prepared to spring for Chinese food. Any mediocre mother would be.

The windows look odd from outside. They’re opaque with steam, even the small panes in the door. The ocean wind normally keeps our kitchen chilly in the winter, but tonight a noticeable warmth washes over me as soon as I go inside. And the rich scent of burning wood is mixed with another aroma, something familiar.

Ragú. Maggie Baker is on tiptoes at the stove, giggling and struggling to control a large pot of furiously boiling pasta. Luke is laughing too, standing next to her, absentmindedly stirring a smaller pot while he watches Maggie struggle. He’s in charge of the red sauce, it seems, and he’s not doing a very good job. He is, after all, his mother’s son.

The front of Luke’s gray sweatshirt is peppered with small red dots. So are Maggie’s sleeves. Actually, they’re my sleeves. She’s wearing my knit fisherman’s sweater.

“Marty, you’re just in time,” she shouts, then bends in two, shrieking, and points her wooden spoon at a red circle newly arrived on Luke’s cheek.

“Ow, that’s hot. It’s not funny.” Luke launches into a laughing fit of his own, though, holding his arms in front of his face as if shielding himself from enemy gunfire.

Just in time or not, I decide to get out of my suit before going anywhere near either one of them. Maggie and Luke continue shouting in the kitchen, each of them giving the other instructions on what to do next, while I change into old jeans and a warm sweater. The clanging of pots is followed by a sound that might be Niagara Falls. I hope some of it went into the sink.

By the time I get back to the kitchen, things have calmed down and the food is actually on the table. The kerosene lamp is lit and two Christmas candles left over from last year are glowing amid the bowls. Maggie is already seated, beaming at her handiwork. Luke holds a chair for me, kitchen towel draped over his arm, as if he’s the maître d’. Never mind the red polka dots.

It’s quite a spread. A steaming bowl of linguine, a fresh garden salad, even garlic bread. I realize I must be ravenous. The Ragú smells divine.

The self-appointed maître d’ pours a glass of Chianti for me, then awaits my approval, as if I might send it back for another vintage. “Sit,” I tell him.

“I’d have made meatballs,” Maggie says, “but there wasn’t any meat.”

A good mother would have meat in the house.

“And I’d have made cookies,” she adds, “but there weren’t any eggs.”

Even a mediocre mother would have eggs on hand.

“This is wonderful,” I tell her. “We don’t need another thing.”

Luke clears his throat and arches his eyebrows at me. Meatballs and cookies sound good to him. I pass him the pasta.

“Maggie, you’re quite a cook. How did you learn?”

She shrugs, a pleased smile on her face. “I cook on Sundays,” she says. “Howard always eats with his poker buddies on Sundays, so it’s just Mom and me home for dinner. Mom says I shouldn’t cook when Howard’s home. He gets mad if anything goes wrong.”

Howard Davis was quite an addition to that household.

Luke reaches for the bread basket, shaking his head. His expression tells me he knows all about Howard Davis. He and Maggie have been talking. Good. Maggie’s going to need a friend in the months ahead. And when it comes to being a friend, Luke is the best.

We eat as if it’s Thanksgiving in Italy, then move into the living room, closer to the woodstove. No need to fuss with the dishes, we all agree. They’ll still be here tomorrow. I realize my claim even to mediocrity is slipping.

By eleven, Luke and I are all but asleep in our overstuffed chairs, and Danny Boy is snoring by the woodstove. Maggie is wide awake, though. She has the sofa bed all set up, and she’s propped on two pillows, reading a Glamour magazine and painting her fingernails.

Luke rallies enough to bid us good night and head for the stairs. Danny Boy stretches and yawns, then follows him. I steer toward my own room, relishing the thought of my old, heavy quilt.

“Don’t read too much longer,” I tell Maggie. “There’s school tomorrow.”

“I’m not going to school tomorrow,” she says.

Luke stands still on the staircase. Danny Boy does too. He looks down at me, then stares up at Luke, as if one of us should give him an explanation.

I lean against my doorway. “You’re not?”

“No.”

This doesn’t sound negotiable. I move back into the living room. “Maggie, it’s the last day before the break. It would be crazy to skip.”

“I want to go see my mom.”

Of course she does.

“I called there today,” she says. “They’ll let me see her at one o’clock tomorrow. For half an hour.”

She’s a self-sufficient little thing.

“I was hoping I could ride over there with you-when you go to work. I don’t mind waiting around. I’ll watch your trial.” She finishes a fingernail and smiles up at me. “It’ll be educational.”

I sit back down in the overstuffed chair. “Maggie, I know you want to see your mom. And she wants to see you. But tomorrow’s the last day of school before Christmas. Don’t miss it. You can go with me on Thursday. Thursday and Friday, if you want.”

Luke steps back into the room. “I have to go in tomorrow,” he says to Maggie. “I have practice.”

He has to go in tomorrow for more reasons than that. Classes, for instance. I bite my tongue.

“But if you wait until Thursday, I’ll go with you,” he says. “If Mom will lend us the car, we can go to the mall while she’s working. I still have Christmas shopping to do.”

Yikes. Christmas shopping. All hopes of maternal mediocrity are dashed.

Maggie caps the nail polish, considering. The educational opportunities afforded by watching my trial apparently pale compared to Luke’s idea. “Will you?” she asks me.

“Will I what?”

“Lend us the car.”

I can’t help but remember my first meeting with Maggie, the newly initiated driver. Hard to believe it was yesterday. “Yes,” I tell her. “But Luke does the driving. All of it.”

She laughs and turns out the lamp. “Okay, okay. I’ll go to school tomorrow. And I’ll go see Mom on Thursday. Thursday and Friday, just like you said.”

Luke heads upstairs again, but I catch his eye before he disappears onto the second floor. I give him a thumbs-up, and he smiles. He really is the best.