“Beer,” came Harley’s answer, and he returned from the kitchen with a cold can of PBR for himself and a cold brown bottle of Bundaberg ginger beer for her.

She began, “We need to stop hoping that we don’t have to take our little boy to a therapist because we’re worried that it’s a small town and everyone will talk, and because we know he’s not emotionally bulletproof like Opie, and so we’re afraid he’ll carry it the rest of his life. We have to stop the wishful thinking and do our jobs as parents.”

“I know, hon.”

“Who makes the call to the therapist, me or you?”

“I will.”

“As for the Bad Axe,” she went on, “and our continued residence here, we have to face the fact that as smart and perceptive as Opie is, she made it all the way to nine years old without understanding what a lesbian is.”

Harley sighed. “Yeah.”

They had spoken to a camp counselor before telling Opie that her mother had been shot, feeling it was a relatively minor but real family situation that first the camp and then Opie should know about. The counselor had suggested stalling for a couple of days and then talking to Opie themselves, because she—the first telltale she in reference to Opie—was working on something to explain to them.

They had waited nervously. Then Opie’s news had turned out to be that she was not actually a boy, as she had once thought when I was so immature, she said. No, she was a girl who loved girls, loved her best friend, Rosie Glick, to be precise, whom she wanted to marry and have babies with, and this had confused her into thinking she was really a boy in the wrong body, because only boys were supposed to love and marry girls, or at least she had never heard anything different back when I was so immature, she said. At camp a woman with a penis named April—Jeez! The woman is named April, you guys, not her penis! Stop!—had helped her figure this out, and helped her understand that Rosie Glick, or any other girl she loved, might or might not love her back in the same way, and all of this was normal and therefore easy-peasy. As soon as she got home, Opie had promised, she would explain to them the huge difference, you guys, between gender and sexual identity…

“She sounded so happy on the phone,” Harley said. “I mean, she’s a happy kid anyway. But she sounded like her feet were off the ground. It’s great to know who you are, right?”

“My point being,” the sheriff said, “that we have choices. We can leave the Bad Axe.”

“Yes.”

“Which we never talk about, because you and I love it here. We can’t imagine being anyplace else. And we just hope the kids are OK.”

“Yes.”

“So.”