Well, he certainly had not been sent to sleep in the garden shed in the dark of night. As he always claimed. They would not have done that. They had—probably they’d laughed it off. In their free-spirited way. Then sent him to bed. For hitting. After which, probably, he’d run out and hid in that shed. Rebelliously. They’d searched and searched. Searching and searching, heroically, they’d finally found him in the shed, sleeping naughtily across a fertilizer bag, tears streaking the dirt on his—­

Why had he been crying when he was supposedly hiding rebelliously?

That was all a long time ago.

She wasn’t getting in the fricking time machine about it.

Sky was black now over the library.

If Pammy got her caught out in the rain she would honest to God tear Pammy a new one.

One Fourth of July, Paul Sr. had groped her in the mums. He’d liked that. He’d been craving more wildness. Okay, pal, here it is. That did the trick. Around the time of the groping-in-the-mums one ceased hearing the name Milly, ditto Carol Menninger, ditto Evelyn Whoever. One briefly ceased hearing those names and smelling those strange perfumes during that fleeting victorious period of victory-by-wildness. Where had the kids been, that magical Fourth of July? Somewhere happy with sparklers, probably. Two sparklers had approached. Then paused. Then departed pronto. Well, that would teach them to spy. That would teach them that adults needed their private time.

“Behold, kiddies,” Paul Sr. had slurred drunkenly into her bare back. “Welcome to your painful eyeful.”

Soon after that wild Fourth came another near-loss-of-house. All wildness ceased. In the absence of wildness, the names/perfumes resumed.

No. A person misremembered. They’d worked shoulder to shoulder to save the house, and the entire question of names/ perfumes had permanently receded, both of them finding it humorous that anyone could possibly think that Paul Sr. would even consider—­

She was so tired.

Stupid Pammy.

Inconsiderate Pammy.

“Home,” she said.

Up ahead, across Pine, sweeping her walk—was that?

It was.

Debi Hather. Good God. Was she ever old.

The strange trashy girl in high school. Big hippie. Tiny head, curly hair, no chest. Look at her over there, still weird: Asian blouse, pants with ties at the ankles, bird-skinny. Who did she think she was, Gandhi or whoever? Mrs. Gandhi?

Hippie Grammy?

Sweeping like a banshee in front of that same tiny former carriage house she’d lived in since she was a girl. With her oddball parents. Mandy and Randy. Both had limps. Different limps. When they walked down the street it was like a freaking dance party.