Lucas and Clover were from Little-Munson, Frances recalled, looking at the boy uncomfortably. His large, wet lower incisors crowded out from his loose jaw as if seeking escape. He had an unappealing face, Frances decided, and in his chiding expressions, he seemed to know this and magnify the effect.

“How are you?” she asked the boy loudly.

Lucas’ mouth was stained. “You’re an orphan,” he said in a silvery, musical voice. His eyes were angry and round.

“What did you say?”

“You don’t have real parents.” Lucas laughed, his crinkling eyes upon hers.

“Why does he say that?” Frances asked Mal nervously.

“I said don’t mind him,” Mal grumped.

“You’re an adult orphan; it means you’re alone, you have no one, and you’ll just die,” Lucas sang.

Frances gritted her teeth. “What are you talking about? I have parents.”

“Nope. You’re not part of them,” he sang.

“And what about you?” she said to Lucas. “You’re the one who probably doesn’t have real parents. Why don’t you wipe your mouth?”

Mal tinkered with two bare wires hanging in the stove’s hood. “Shut up, boy,” he said.

“My mother’s young,” Lucas sang on, lips thick and moist. “She’s not perfect! But she knows me.”

“Lucas’s good with his hands,” Mal remarked to Frances.

“You’re not lucky!!” Lucas burst out, while Frances stared.

“I said don’ mind him. He jes’ likes t’ tell all diff’rent kind a’ tales,” Mal observed, now upending a jar of olives onto a plate of crackers. “That’s b’cause he’s fanciful.”

Frances moved away, pushing knuckles against the refrigerator door, now recalling, for some reason, her childhood home. One year, a tin-colored spot appeared at the end of her mother’s shapeless brown sofa, seemingly without cause. This puzzled the family, and there was some speculation that the spot came from within the cushions themselves. Finally, the spot incited Frances’ father to holler at her sister, accusing Valencia of a wrongful, lax association with a teenage boy who, the father said, had poor character and an unsuitable frame of mind. As it turned out, the father was right, because the next night the boy burned down a neighbor’s shed. Then the Johnson family, except Valencia, all believed the boy had in fact caused the stain on one of his evening visits. But one weekend, with the aid of a flashlight and lemon juice, Frances’ mother managed to prove this theory wrong. It was Frances who had caused the stain, she said, though Frances could not recall doing anything to stain the couch. For weeks she tried to recall the truth, but without success.

“. . . an’ he didn’t get any.”

“What, Mal?”

“I said he doesn’t care to be patted, or t’ have any affections whatsoever.” Lucas stared impassively ahead. “He usually keeps sep’rate-like from other folks. Well, it suits him. Do you like affection, Frances?” Mal asked.

“Oh, Mal, it’s really not my style.” She turned away, ready to leave, pulling a pill of flour off her shoe-sole.