At Good Shepherd, we got out in time because a fire truck just happened to be driving past as the flames took hold. We got out in time because we pounded and screamed loud enough that the firemen heard us and because they had the right tool to break the chain.

Had a guardian angel been at Good Shepherd? Directing traffic to save the eight of them? But a true guardian angel would have prevented the fire in the first place. And any guardian angel would have come to save the nine-year-old.

“Alec,” said her mother, “Ginger Framm wants us to go with them on a house and garden tour.”

Macey could not tell if her mother was changing the subject or if her mother had not even noticed the subject.

“I hate house and garden tours,” moaned Dad. Dad didn’t want tickets to anything, ever. When he was home, he was home. He liked to fool around on the computer, rent movies, maybe wash the car. But leaving the property for any reason other than life-support purchases was unfair torture for a man who had worked so hard all week.

“I know, but Ginger has to sell ten tickets.”

“Let’s buy the tickets and not go,” said Dad.

Ginger Framm was Mom’s lifelong best friend. “Were you best friends with Mrs. Framm back in 1959, too, Mom?”

“Oh, yes, Ginger and I have been best friends from kindergarten.”

Macey loved that. She and Grace had been best friends since first grade, and Lindsay had moved here when they were in fourth. She loved thinking of friendships lasting a lifetime.

I’m lucky I even have a lifetime, she thought.

She could smell smoke in her hair as strongly as if the fire still burned.

Austin’s Grandfather’s rowing machine was in the formal living room, a location Grandmother hated and had been complaining about for years. It faced toward the ocean so Grandfather could actually see the water as he rowed, as if he were out on it. When he did go out on the ocean, of course, he used his powerboat, and if he had to row, he would feel he had failed.

Austin had discovered that if he shifted a little armchair that was completely useless anyway, and tied the curtains back tighter than Grandmother liked them, and then gave the rowing machine a half turn, he could row watching the Macey house.

He was on the floor, however, and could see only the roof. He didn’t want to admit he was watching for Macey’s arrival, so when Grandfather asked why he’d turned the rowing machine, he said, “It slipped,” which was totally stupid, because it weighed a jillion pounds and the floor was flat.

Grandfather said, “Oh,” and sat in front of his scope looking at a flock of mergansers in the cove, telling Austin that somebody at the Audubon Society claimed to have seen a loon there yesterday.