Breakfast that first morning on Bohemian Row continued for the better part of an hour, until we had exhausted all avenues of small talk and the last of the orange juice. I learned more about Zelda Groves and her writing, about Alistair Lees and his career as a portrait painter in New Orleans, and about Donald Lilly and his family"s petroleum fortune. Perhaps Judge Spurgeon never considered the effects a twelve-year-old interloper would have on the staff and the residents of the Liberty Street Home, that my presence might create problems for the staff or discomfort for the residents. The moment the last piece of toast disappeared from the table, that dreadful silence that asks “What"s next?” descended.
“So,” Anne Moore said, a final punctuation to the breakfast conversation. “Louise, would
