The Demitroffs were in their forties. They had postponed having children; Mrs. Demitroff ended up taking fertility pills and now had triplets, age three. Once Mrs. Demitroff had actually asked Austin to baby-sit. He explained to her that he was unreliable and cruel and children had nightmares when they were around him. Mrs. Demitroff said she didn’t care, she would pay him anything. Austin said he was never going to be for sale where triplets were concerned.

Mrs. Demitroff said, “I looked up the word bonfire once. Do you know what it means? Bone fire. It used to be for the burning of corpses.”

“Oh, sweet Mrs. Demitroff,” said Macey. “Is this the kind of bedtime story you tell the triplets?”

“I had hoped to hire you or Austin for my triplets, but no. You are opposed to the care of little children.”

“We’re not actually opposed to the care of little children,” said Austin. “If you want them to have care, go ahead. We just oppose having a share in it.”

“Think of the money I would pay you,” coaxed Mrs. Demitroff.

Macey said, “What do you know about the fire when your stable burned down?”

“Not a thing.” Mrs. Demitroff fixed herself a twig for marshmallow toasting. “It was decades ago. Ancient history.”

Austin whittled down a couple of sticks so there were no twigs poking out the sides and the tops were sharp and pale and clean. He handed one to Macey.

“Aus,” she said, “you’re a prince.”

But there was no meaning in how she said it; she just practiced courtesy around her grandparents. Austin knew the habit.

Her hair swirled in the wind and he hoped she would put a rubber band around it before she got near the fire, but she paid no attention to her hair. He imagined making a safe ponytail for her with his fist.

“Here’s a better stick, Mrs. Demitroff,” said Austin. He was enjoying himself. He liked neighbors. In the city, no matter how harsh the winter—and Chicago winters made Connecticut winters look pretty wimpy—you were always in the midst of your neighbors, but here in the suburbs, neighbors vanished until spring. Now he could imagine spring and summer, full of company, ages three to seventy-nine.

Macey was definitely interested in that old fire. Now she asked Miss Miklowsky, a woman whose wrinkles entered her in a contest for oldest American.

Miss Miklowsky had put three marshmallows on her stick at once. She liked hers burned black, so there was little technique involved—shove it in the flames and let it catch fire, blow it out when cinders start dropping. “Oh, it was just a stable, Macey. You know, horses. I guess somebody got them out. I don’t remember anything about a renter. But I moved here eighteen years ago and you’re going back thirty-eight years.”

Macey said, “Thirty-eight years? Then you know when the fire was?”

“It was 1959.”