On Memorial Day weekend, Stoningham celebrated its 350th birthday. I had to hand it to Gillian, my mother and the scores of volunteers. It was beautiful.

We started the day with a parade. I brought Pepper, since she loved people, and she wagged joyfully at every person she saw. At the last minute, I’d found myself one of the volunteers—the person in charge of the nursery school float had had a meltdown over the responsibility of it all, and my mom recommended me to step in. It was right up my alley, after all. Kids. Art. Last-minute accomplishments.

There’s something so tender about a small-town parade. The handful of Stoningham veterans, some of them so old, so noble, riding in a convertible, waving with a gnarled hand as the townspeople cheered and teared up. The National Guard volunteers, somber in their uniforms. My mom, looking beautiful in a blue pantsuit with a red scarf, and the other two selectmen. The town clergy—Rabbi Fierstein, whose daughter had been my bus buddy in grammar school; Reverend Bateman, who used to read The Giving Tree on Easter Sunday; the handsome Catholic priest.

Then came the kids. The 4-H club, the sailing club, the school music bands (including Brianna on trumpet). The Brownies, Sloane looking so stinking cute in her uniform, saying, “Hi, Auntie!” like she hadn’t just seen me that morning.

Then came my float, bright as a garden, decorated in hundreds and hundreds of crepe paper flowers (not the vaginal kind), all the little kids wearing (or taking off) the beaks and wings I’d made out of papier-mâché. Damn cute. Fly, Little Birds, Fly! I’d written across the banner, making the letters out of their handprints. As I said, it was my groove.

I saw Noah, Mickey and Marcus across the street. Mickey waved, nudged Noah, and he waved, too.

We hadn’t spoken since the hardware store run-in. I understood. His son needed stability. Noah needed stability, and I wasn’t exactly that. Love was not all you needed. You needed to match, to fit, to want the same things. I had never wanted five kids. I wasn’t sure I wanted any. I’d never really known what I wanted, except to be a painter.

But my heart hurt just the same, looking at him. I loved him, and I didn’t make him happy, and that was an awful ache I didn’t know how to fix. I petted Pepper to remind myself I wasn’t alone in the world.

After the parade, the shops and businesses of Water Street hosted a sidewalk stroll, serving snacks and drinks, putting bowls of water out for doggies. Sheerwater, that splendid house the town now owned, was open all day, the garden club giving tours and hosting a high tea. There was a small regatta (we were Connecticut, after all). In the evening, there’d be the auction to raise money for scholarships.