Corinne laughed, then said, “Speaking of children running wild. Did you ladies hear what happened on the Fourth out at the Gronziks’ farm? A bunch of kids were out there late at night pushing over the poor cows. Mr. Gronzik says he ran out there after them but all he saw were the taillights, and the poor cows on the ground.”

“Mercy me,” exclaimed Mrs. Fryt, and a discussion followed on the heathen qualities of the younger generation. More terrible to Dolly than what they were saying about the younger generation was the fact that they didn’t seem to consider her a part of it.

“Well, I guess I really am old,” she told Byron that night at supper, over the whir of the fan in the window. The skies had been darkening all afternoon, and the kitchen was dusky, but Dolly didn’t want to add extra heat by turning on the light—it was bad enough she’d had to have the oven on to bake potatoes au gratin. They were having fried pork chops and green beans, too, and even as she had executed the menu, Dolly had cringed over its banality. She had planned on making stuffed pork chops instead, but, once again, the quilting meeting had sapped her verve.

He laughed. “Old? You? I don’t think so, Doll. Besides, if you’re old, what does that make me?”

“Ancient,” she said, and whimsically flung a potato slice from her fork at his chest. It made a satisfying thwack.

He looked down at the cheesy smear on his shirt, and picked up the potato from his lap with an air of weariness. “Doll,” he said. “What’s gotten into you?”

She leaned back in her chair, sulking. “Nothing, Byron.”

He stood up from the table and began unbuttoning his shirt. “You’d better wash this right away, so the stain doesn’t set. Good thing I had my napkin on my lap, or you’d have to do my pants, too.”

Suddenly, there was a great boom of thunder, and the skies opened like a dam had burst.

Byron cursed, and lunged across the kitchen to unplug the fan and yank it from the window. He slammed the window shut. Dolly leapt up, too; in a moment, tearing around the house, they managed to close everything tight, and then stood panting in the dimness of the living room, listening to the pounding of the rain on the roof. It reminded Dolly of home, of Battle Point, and she laughed. Byron, his au gratined shirt gaping open over his undershirt, laughed, too, and ran his hand through his hair, which had gotten a little wet in his battle with the windows. Ever since those days at the beach when she was sixteen, Dolly had always found him irresistible when wet.