When he was fifteen years old, one of the women whose houses his mother cleaned asked her if she knew anyone who could take care of the grounds in the fall. Jocelyn volunteered her son, and in October of that year, Jake began to work one day a week at Mrs. Codd’s shingled cottage, two streets from the shore and with a two-acre backyard to take care of. His job was primarily raking, getting rid of the leaves from the massive beech trees and maples that lined her property, but Mrs. Codd always had one or two small jobs for him to do around the house—taking down the storm windows, or moving the patio furniture back into the garage. She’d hover near him while he did these chores, always with a lit cigarette. Her hair, cut into a bob, was dyed a platinum shade of blond; her face was heart shaped, dominated by wide-set brown eyes made larger by heavy streaks of light blue eyeshadow. She couldn’t have been more than fifty years old—at most—but her two children were already away at college, and her husband, an insurance executive in Hartford, came out to the house only on the weekends. Like some of the kids at school, and not at all like his own parents, Emma Codd talked nonstop to Jake, even sometimes accompanying him as he raked up leaves, telling him about her two boys at college, or asking him what kids these days were like, what music did he listen to, what did he watch on television.

“We don’t have a TV,” he said to her, the first time he’d admitted that to someone.

“Well, that’s probably a very healthy thing, Jake, although I don’t know what I’d do without it in the evenings. It’s not that I watch it all the time, but it’s nice to have on just for the company, you know?”

“My parents don’t really care about my health, it’s just that my dad is too cheap.” Jake had figured out that Emma Codd, who could talk about anything, liked to talk about other people’s shortcomings most of all.

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” she said. “I bet he’s just worried about your eyes, is all. But, really, if it has to do with money, I’d be happy to just let you have my old television set, one of those things they made just after the war, looks more like a radio with a screen in it, but I’m sure it still works. Or, you’re more than welcome to come over anytime you want in the evening and watch some television with me. I wouldn’t mind the company.”