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to be,” he said.
    “Were you thinking it was? Is?” I was smiling. I liked that I could talk easily to Ian. I needed a male friend much more than I needed a lover.
    “I was just thinking it would be good to see you smile,” Ian said, “like you are right now.”
    The moment he said that, I felt my smile disappear. There was something I needed to tell him. I’d planned to wait until tomorrow so that tonight we could both relax and unwind. Suddenly, though, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to keep my mouth shut.
    After school that afternoon, I’d driven to Noelle’s to help Emerson start cleaning out the house. Emerson had been waiting for me on the porch, and as soon as I’d reached the top step she grabbed my hand and sat down with me on the glider. Her face was red and gleamed with perspiration, and I knew she’d already been hard at work inside the house. But the stress in her face was from more than physical labor.
    “You’re not going to believe the autopsy report,” she said.
    “She was sick,” I said. I wanted that to be the case. A terminal illness that Noelle could see no escape from. I could envision her making the choice to end her life then, not wanting to put any of us through a long drawn-out illness with her.
    But that wasn’t it at all.
    Now I looked across the table at Ian. “Noelle had a baby,” I said.
    He stared at me, then laughed. “What are you talking about?”
    “Emerson got the autopsy report today. Cause of death was the overdose, as we’d expected. But the autopsy showed that, sometime in her life, she’d been pregnant and given birth.”
    All signs of levity left Ian’s face. “When?”
    “I don’t know.” I hesitated for just a moment, then asked, “Could it have been yours, Ian?”
    He looked jarred by the thought. I was certain we were both remembering back to the abrupt end to his and Noelle’s engagement. Was there a connection?
    “I don’t see how,” he said. “I— all of us—would have noticed if she’d been pregnant. Especially pregnant enough to actually give birth.”
    “It must have happened when she was a teenager, then,” I said. “Before any of us knew her. Emerson and I figure that she relinquished the baby for adoption. Maybe she’s been dealing with sadness from that experience all these years and none of us knew.”
    “Well,” Ian said, “maybe you’re right or maybe the baby died or… I guess we’ll never know. I just…I thought I knew her so well back when we were together. Why didn’t she tell me?”
    “Why didn’t she tell Emerson or me?” I added. “Her best friends?” I looked down at my plate where a few bites of flounder remained. I wasn’t sure I could finish it. “Anyhow, it probably has nothing to do with why she killed herself,” I said.
    “Unless it’s something she never got over.” He looked miserable.
    “I’m sorry I brought this up tonight. I should have kept my mouth shut.”
    “No, I’m glad you told me,” he said.
    I ate another bite of flounder without really tasting it. I was tired. Emerson and I had packed up everything in Noelle’s kitchen, filling boxes with items Ted would take to the women’s shelter. There wasn’t much. Noelle had pared down her life. She’d never been a pack rat, but I’d been surprised at how empty her kitchen cabinets had been. A few plates. A few glasses and cups and bowls. Nothing extraneous. Her dresser and closet had been the same way, stripped down to the necessities. It had been hard to see her familiar old long skirts and loose cotton blouses, knowing we’d never see Noelle in them again. Then there were the black garbage bags filled with baby items that had been all over the house. Ted and Emerson piled the bags into their car to take home with them, where Grace and Jenny promised to organize the mess and turn it over to Suzanne.
    I’d been shocked when Grace told me she planned to help out with the babies program as Noelle had requested. Emerson had