The Pursuit of Alice Thrift. Elinor Lipman

less said the better, Rosemary confided once we’d taken our seats in the dining room. “He calls once in a while but Ma won’t come to the phone.”

      “And you don’t ask her for an explanation?”

      Marie said, “She moved into his house after the wedding, and was back here in less than a month.”

      “She implied that he raised his hand to her,” Michael whispered, “but we think it had to do with the bedroom.”

      “Wouldn’t she tell you outright?” I asked. “Or file charges if he really did hit her?”

      The four Frawley children twisted their mouths in various directions, all telegraphing the same thing: Enough said.

      Leo added, “We think part of the deal up front was separate bedrooms, which Ma took to mean no wifely duties and no honeymoon.”

      Marie put her finger to her lips and everyone but me nodded in complicitous agreement.

      Raising her voice so it would carry to the kitchen, Rosemary said, “Leo tells us that you’re a surgeon.”

      I said yes, I was. But just starting out, and it was a long road ahead, much competition, much narrowing down of the field.

      “She worries about everything,” said Leo.

      Mrs. Morrisey came back through the door with a roasted chicken on a cutting board. “The plastic thing popped up like it was supposed to, but I left the bird in because the baked potatoes weren’t ready. It might be a little dry,” she announced. “And, Rosey, get the vegetables out of the microwave, please. Use the Fiestaware.”

      “Need another set of hands?” Leo called after his sister.

      “You stay here with our guest,” said his mother. “Marie will get the drinks.”

      “The chicken looks delicious,” I said.

      “I hope there’s enough,” said Mrs. Frawley. “Leo didn’t tell me until this morning that he was bringing a guest.”

      “The choices seem to be milk or water,” Marie said from the doorway.

      “Milk,” I said. “And don’t worry about having enough to go around. I don’t eat much; in fact a baked potato would be fine.”

      “You’re not a vegetarian, are you?” Marie asked.

      Leo turned to me with a grin. “Are you? I don’t even think I’d know the answer to that.”

      I said no, I wasn’t. I liked everything.

      “Why wouldn’t you know that?” Michael asked his brother.

      “Because she works all the time, and when she’s home, that’s the night I’m out. Which is why we’re perfect roommates.”

      “Out working,” asked his mother, “or out carousing?”

      He grinned. “Carousing.” He got to his feet and approached the roast chicken on its ancient cutting board, cracked and wooden, the very kind that health officials ask consumers to replace with hygienic plastic.

      “Who wants white meat who isn’t a Frawley?”

      “Maybe a small slice,” I said.

      Leo said, “You’re our guest. You’re going to get several slices because I can scramble myself a couple of eggs or make myself a bologna sandwich if need be.”

      Marie said, “I would’ve picked up another chicken on my way home if Ma had called me.”

      “Wouldn’t we all,” murmured Leo.

      Mrs. Morrisey said, “I have an apple pie and a half-gallon of harlequin ice cream.”

      “Pass the plates, please,” said Leo.

      We said grace, and thankfully we didn’t have to clasp hands around the table. Mrs. Morrisey looked at me for a long few seconds before picking up her knife and fork.

      “Go ahead, Ma, ask,” said Leo. Then to me, “She’s dying to know if you’re Catholic.”

      “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m not.”

      Leo said, “And …? That’s only half an answer. She wants to know what brand of church you belong to.”

      “I was raised Unitarian.”

      “She’s heard worse,” said Leo.

      “How’d you and Leo get together?” asked one of the sisters.

      I explained that Leo had posted an ad on a hospital bulletin board and I answered it.

      “She called Ma for a reference,” Leo said, and laughed.

      “What did you say?” Michael asked his mother.

      Mrs. Morrisey, unamused, said, “That I didn’t see why a girl would want to share an apartment with an unrelated man, but if that was her only option, then Leo was polite and clean.”

      “Thanks, Ma.”

      “And named after a pope,” I said.

      It was not the right thing to say. Mrs. Morrisey concentrated very hard on sliding her peas off her fork between tight lips.

      “Which is a historical fact I found very interesting,” I added.

      “All my children are named after saints or popes,” she said.

      “I’m named after an aunt who was a WAC in World War Two,” I volunteered.

      “Did she make it back alive?” asked Michael.

      “Definitely. And lived to ninety and died in a veterans’ hospital.”

      Mrs. Morrisey asked, “Was it the VA in Jamaica Plain?”

      “No,” I said. “The VA in Loma Linda, California.”

      “The children’s father died at the VA in Jamaica Plain, which turned out to be a blessing because Cardinal Law happened to be visiting the day he slipped into a coma, and it was the cardinal who performed his extreme unction.” Mrs. Morrisey held her napkin under the tip of her nose.

      “We were there,” said Marie. “We all met him.”

      “I heard about your grandmother,” said Mrs. Morrisey. “I’m very sorry for your loss. Was it very sudden?”

      “It was and it wasn’t. I mean, all death is sudden from the medical standpoint that one second a person’s alive and the next second he or she is dead.”

      “I never thought of it that way,” said Mrs. Morrisey.

      “She had a lot of things going on medically, but the official cause of death was pneumonia.”

      “Old man’s friend,” said Leo.

      We all looked up for an explanation.

      “Old man’s friend,” he repeated. “That’s what pneumonia’s called. Because it ends the suffering.”

      “I never heard of such a thing,” his mother sniffed. She squeezed her baked potato so its insides erupted. Without being asked, Rosemary passed the margarine.

      Nor had I heard of such a thing. I asked Leo if that was a common expression on the wards.

      “Probably not,” said Leo. “It’s just one of those things doctors mumble when the shoe fits.”

      I put my fork down. “Do you mean because the patient’s old and feeble and on life support, and his family’s trying to decide whether to remove the feeding tube or take him off the respirator? That pneumonia settles the question for them?”

      Leo said, “Maybe we can discuss the fine points later.”

      “Are you saying nobody would even