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Page 171
crammed full of delicate furniture, some of which looked as though it came from Abby's time. On a settee with intricately carved legs sat a tiny woman. A cloud of silver hair framed her face. Her skin had the parched, powdered look of a woman far past her prime, yet, though there were creases in her brow and beside her mouth, her flesh barely sagged. She had a sweetly upturned noseand Abby stood in the doorway staring, tears filling her eyes. In her blue flowered dress, Mike's petite great-aunt Jess looked much as Abby would have imagined Lucy to have looked half a century after Abby had last seen her.
"Come in," Jess demanded, her voice strong, if high-pitched. She looked Abby over with myopic, waiflike brown eyes, then patted the brocade upholstery of the settee beside her. "Dixie, dear, you sit here."
Abby looked quickly at Mike as she took the seat Jess designated, smelling the scent of roses and something harshly medicinal emanating from the elderly woman.
Mike's face was stony as he began to speak, but Grace interrupted. "Now, Jess, you know Mike lost poor Dixie five months back. This is his friend Abby."
"Dixie was my wife," he explained to Abby in an expressionless undertone. "She's . . . deceased." Grace and he took seats opposite the settee.
Did he not recall the scene in his office with his brother-in-law? Abby had been there. She

 
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