The boy would not be alone in the house. The world was changed and most nights now Jamie was home but the few he was called out he took Foster with him, the two of them in the Packard Twin Six, the boy for the most part riding silent. Sometimes he would hum, snatches of tuneless sound. Sometimes short phrases of songs his mother would have once sung around the house but never did he sing the words but only offkey humming, a high child’s rendering. Thoughtless. As if the phrases were some part of him unconnected to anything else. Sometimes the humming would drift off to nothing. Other times it would stop mid-phrase. These times Jamie would glance over. The boy might be gazing straight ahead out the windshield into the night. Or his head turned to the side window. Or lolled down sleeping against the door upholstery.

Now with the Flood girl gone Foster rode along daytimes as well. At least for the remainder of the summer. The two of them in a world unmoored.

The previous November the four of them had driven to Littleton for ceremonies marking the armistice signed in Europe. After the false armistice something arose in them and prompted an urge to celebrate that might otherwise not have occurred. For the war itself had been more hindrance for Jamie than anything else—the hotel trade had fallen to some token resemblance of its former self—and while he was close-mouthed about it outside of the house, inside he so often said that like everything else it was all about money that Joey would sometimes mock him by finishing lines he’d just begun. Still, that November day was bright and warm, with the new snow shrinking already when they departed the house midday, the winter birds, the chickadees and jays, darting with evident delight as if winter was not just held back a day but coming to a close, and there was a spell of adventure over them as they drove to the festivities. Later, Jamie would attempt to attribute the unease he felt to some premonition, some foretaste of knowledge.