Mae held out a hand about nine inches from the head of the Scottie, who still hadn’t noticed her. “He won’t bite?”

“He never bites,” the woman said. “What’s your name?”

“Mae.”

The dog looked up and Mae jerked her arm back, but the dog merely rose slowly on its hind legs and sniffed.

“Mae,” the woman said, “this is Indy.”

Indy sniffed Mae’s leg and she looked back over her shoulder at us, uncertain.

“He wants to be petted,” I said.

In increments, she lowered her body and touched his head. He turned his snout into her palm, and she lowered herself even more. The closer she got to him, the more I wanted to ask the couple if they were sure their dog didn’t bite. It was and odd feeling. On the danger scale, Scottish terriers fall somewhere in between guppies and sunflowers, but that wasn’t much comfort as I watched Mae’s tiny body inch closer and closer to something with teeth.

When Indy jumped on Mae, I almost dove at them, but Grace put a hand on my arm, and Mae shrieked and she and the dog rolled around on the grass like old pals.

Grace sighed. “That was a clean dress she was wearing.”

We sat down on a bench and watched for a while as Mae and Indy chased each other and stumbled into each other and tackled each other and got up and did it again.

“You have a beautiful daughter,” the woman said.

“Thank you,” Grace said.

Mae came dashing past the bench, hands up at her head, shrieking as Indy nipped at her heels. They went about another twenty yards and then went down in a tiny explosion of grass and dirt.

“How long have you been married?” the woman asked.

Before I could answer, Grace dug her fingers into my thigh.

“Five years,” she said.

“You seem like newlyweds,” the woman said.

“So do you.”

The man laughed and his wife poked him with an elbow.

“We feel like newlyweds,” Grace said. “Don’t we, honey?”

“We put Mae to bed around eight, and she dropped off quickly, her fuel supply exhausted by our long walk around the river and her game of tag with Indy. When we came back into the living room, Grace immediately began picking things up off the floor—coloring books, toys, tabloid magazines, and horror paperbacks. The tabloids and books weren’t Grace’s, they were Annabeth’s. Grace’s father died when she was in college, and he left both girls a modest fortune. Grace depleted hers pretty quickly by paying what wasn’t covered by her scholarship during her final two years at Yale, then supporting herself, her then-husband Bryan, and Mae before Bryan left her and Tufts Medical accepted her on fellowship, and she burned through most of what remained on living expenses.

Annabeth, four years younger, did a year of community college and then blew through the bulk of her inheritence during a year in Europe. She kept photographs of the trip taped to her headboard and vanity, and every one of them was taken in a bar. How to Drink Your Way Through Europe on Forty Grand.