She hit me on the arm, describing how she’d dug up half the front yard in the month before she left town. Planted a hedge of foxglove and a line of purple indigo that led from the street to her front door.

“That’s what’s nice about renting now,” Kelly said. “If I want to, I can just up and go. I’ve already figured out that I can get everything important in one carload.”

The sun rose up into the sky, and I pulled into an inlet. Kelly threw anchor, and I took out two umbrellas. Set them up on the deck near the two fishing chairs.

Kelly went inside then and grabbed Sprite atop crushed ice. She came out with a pack of salami and cheese.

We got a second line in the water and waited, passing the food back and forth.

“Are you close with these kids in your class?” I asked.

“You’re not supposed to form personal relationships,” she said. “But you do.”

“So the girls from that day?” I asked.

“I love those girls,” she said.

The conversation went quiet for a second, and far off I could see only one other boat on the lake, motoring along. A solid mile away.

“What was your son like?” she asked.

“Jonas,” I said, a smile coming to my face. “He was so curious. So smart.” I thought a moment before continuing. “That’s one of the things that crushes me still,” I said. “Not getting to find out what he would’ve become. He was reading really early. That was Lena’s doing. They read every night and every morning. It was my job to tell him stories.”

“Like make-believe?”

“A lot of them were cop stories that were real.” I grinned. “But I’d take out the dangerous parts. Like instead of a guy having a gun in his hand, he’d have a donut.”

Kelly patted her waistline. “Donuts can be deadly.”

“I’d tell Jonas it was a really menacing snack. An illegal snack, so Dad had to arrest the guy. He loved that part. Where I cuffed him and took the donut as evidence.”

Kelly reached over and put her hand on mine.

“When he was six, he got into these Magic Tree House books where this boy and his sister would go up into this big tree.” I furrowed my brow, remembering. “I think it was his sister. Anyway, they’d use books to travel through time.”

“You remember where they went?”

“Everywhere,” I said. “The Middle Ages or the Cretaceous Period. The Wild Wild West. Egypt. Jonas and Lena would read them, and then he’d explain every detail to me. Then he’d tell me about these new endings he’d dreamt up. Alternate endings. And I thought—wow. Maybe we’ve got a writer in the family.”

I fell silent and pulled in my line, resetting my bait, which was gone now.

Kelly climbed onto my lap.

I leaned against the chair back, and she hugged me. She had no bra on under her T-shirt, and I felt her breasts soft against my chest.