The front door is unlocked. He climbs the stairs to the second floor and pauses outside the golden plywood wall. Stranger, whoever you are, open this to learn what will amaze you.

When he opens the little door, light spills through the arched doorway. Atop the stage, Marian stands on a step stool, touching a brush to the gold and silver towers of her backdrop. He watches her climb off the stool to examine her work, then climb back on, dip her brush, and add three more birds swinging around a tower. The smell of fresh paint is strong. Everything is quiet.

To be eighty-six years old and feel this.

Seymour

Just as the first snows stick to the ridges above town, Idaho Power shuts off the electricity to the double-wide. The propane tank in the front yard is still one-third full, so Bunny heats the house by turning on the oven and leaving its door open. Seymour charges his tablet at the ice rink, and gives his mother most of the money he makes.

• MATHILDA: cold tonite been thinking of u
• SEEMORE6: cold here 2
• MATHILDA: when its dark like this I want to take off clothes run outside feel air on my skin
• MATHILDA: then get back in bed all cozy
• SEEMORE6: rly?
• MATHILDA: u have 2 hurry have 2 get here i can hardly stand it
• MATHILDA: have 2 come up with ur task

On Christmas morning Bunny sits him at the kitchen table. “I’m giving in, Possum. I’m going to sell. Find a place to rent. After next year, you’ll be off, and I don’t need a whole acre to myself.”

Behind her the gas whooshes blue inside the open oven.

“I know this place has been important to you, maybe more important than I realize. But it’s time now. They’re hiring a housekeeper at the Sachse Inn, a longer drive, I know, but it’s a job. If I’m lucky, between the job and the house sale, I can pay off all this debt and have enough left over to get my teeth fixed. Maybe even help with college.”

Out the sliding door the lights of the townhomes flicker behind an icy fog. A terrible sensitivity has been building inside Seymour: a hundred voices in the basement of his head speaking all at once. Eat this, wear this, you’re inadequate, you don’t belong, your pain will go away if you purchase this right now. See-More Stool-Guy, ha ha. Out there, in the ground beneath the toolshed, waits Pawpaw’s old Beretta and his crate of hand grenades, nestled in their five-by-five grids. If he holds his breath, he can hear the grenades rattling lightly in their places.

Bunny sets her palms flat on the table. “You’re going to do something special with your life, Seymour. I know it.”