It might be easier, Lily thinks, if she could just get away from this place. If she could get away from all the jumbled-up memories, perhaps then she could decide what to do. They need an outing. “Perhaps we might feed the ducks later.”

Edna has stopped reading and taken to fanning herself with the pages instead. She is blowing out air through puckered lips. “This’ll be global warming,” she says, ever the teacher. “Melting ice caps and the like.”

Lily has found an answer. “We could stop by the river and make an afternoon of it.” If she can get the wretched thing out of the house, she can be done with it. She can drop it into a litter bin as she pushes Edna ahead of her in the chair. Edna will be none the wiser.

“We never used to have summers like this, I know that much.”

This is something Lily has begun to notice, how often the two of them hold separate conversations. And then she wonders if they ever really talked about anything. She feels herself blush. That’s hardly fair. In the beginning, they were always talking. Talking was what brought them together in the first place; there was little else to do on that rooftop. They would sit up late into the night—into the morning even—sharing each other’s hopes and fears for the future. When did all that change? Lily feels she should know the answer to that, but she can’t quite remember.

“It’ll be cooler by the river. And there’s some bread in the larder we could take for the ducks.”

“That bread’s stale,” Edna grunts.

“Yes,” says Lily. “Still, I don’t suppose they’ll mind.”

Edna coughs and wheezes, though Lily is far from sure as to the legitimacy of this sudden attack; it feels remarkably well timed. “I’m too tired.” And that is that. There will be no grand outing today.

The letter pulls at Lily’s leg. A blackbird lands in the apple tree in the center of the lawn. Below it, a number of wasps buzz lazily around the pots of jam that Lily has placed there to distract them from the fruit. She watches a wasp crawl up the glass of a jar, its tiny feet crossing Mr. Robertson’s name. She finds herself urging it on. What use has a wasp anyway, other than to annoy? To buzz and sting. How they drone, on and on. Not the productive busy droning of a bee, but a relentless, irritating noise that serves only to warn you you’re about to get stung for no reason. Waspish, what an appropriate adjective!

“Damn woman’s forgotten the papers again.”

“Sorry?”

“Her next door.” Edna gestures at their neighbor’s fence with a pen. She’s picked up yesterday’s crossword. Her book lies discarded, facedown, brittle pages flaking on the upholstery. She rocks the sun lounger, legs that still remember school-day swings lifting her gently from the ground.