“Call it what you will,” Miranda said, gathering her dog-eared deck of cards and tucking them into an equally battered box. “I’ve lived in this town all my life, and I’ve seen it happen over and over again.”

“But isn’t it possible that, well, our minds just automatically sort deaths into groups of three?”

Miranda sighed, stood up, straightened her apron. Her shift would be over soon, and she’d leave for the little house on Willow Road, where she had lived since birth. When she wasn’t at work, or at church, she holed up in the shed behind her house and spun clay into pots and vases, plates and bowls.

She lived alone—had never married—and Brynne wondered if, as busy as she kept herself, she ever got lonely.

From there, it wasn’t a big leap to imagining herself as an older woman, living in the Pine Street house, like her parents before her, splashing paint onto canvases or watercolor paper.

No husband, no children. Just herself, and maybe a dog, or a few dozen cats, whiling away the sunset years of her life.

Much as she loved painting—not to mention dogs and cats—the image saddened her deeply.

Caught up in that revelry, she still managed to shift her imagination to another scenario entirely—herself, but this time, with Eli. Both of them aging, comfortable with each other. In this version of the future, they had grown children, and grandchildren, too, though Brynne didn’t see them in her mind’s eye.

She only saw herself, silver-haired, happy, and Eli, also gray, but still as strong and able as ever.

Before she could succumb to another emotional meltdown—was she premenstrual, or what?—Brynne took charge of herself and focused on doing the next right thing, which was to help Frank restock the shelves of liquor behind the bar.

The evening waitresses, Sally and Joan, arrived, and Miranda went home.

Harry replaced Frank in the kitchen and, when necessary, behind the bar.

Brynne retreated to her apartment, fed a loudly meowing Waldo and took a long, hot shower.

Afterward, she dressed in her oldest pair of jeans and a raggedy T-shirt, went into the guest room where her art supplies were stored, found a midsize canvas and propped it up on the giant easel.

It was bad planning, she supposed, to start playing with acrylic paint in such a close space—the easel was wedged in between the bed she’d bought for Davey and a chest of drawers, and the floor was carpeted—but she needed color, and plenty of it.

For as long as she could remember, Brynne had hungered for bright splashes of color, woven them like broad, gleaming ribbons into the very fabric of her soul.

She brushed a magenta stripe across the center of the canvas, then a turquoise one, followed by a splash of vibrant orange.