We walked along the river where we’d walked the first day, when I’d watched them walk straight in without flinching. It was a painfully beautiful day. The sky was so blue it felt like a cut, and the edges of everything seemed sharper because of the light (or perhaps that was just because I’d spent all day inside watching TV). The breeze felt good; it was nearly four, and I hadn’t been outside all day.

“I saw the show,” they said. “The costume turned out amazing.”

“It was mostly Phoebe.”

“I looked for you after,” they said. “I brought you a bouquet.”

“I had a lot of work to do,” I said, which was true, I did. “I’m sorry about the flowers. I’m sure they were beautiful.”

There was a long silence between us.

“So,” Ros said. “Remember that pie?”

“Unfortunately,” I say.

“Don’t say that,” Ros said. “It was a really fucking good pie.”

“You didn’t even get to try it.”

They shot me a look.

“You didn’t,” I said. “Ros, there was GLASS in that pie, it’s probably like, shredding your stomach lining.…”

“Oh my God, I ate it BEFORE. How dumb do you think I am?”

“But we didn’t eat it—”

“You didn’t eat it. I ate some. When you followed Oliver around the front. And then I covered it back up with whipped cream.”

“You weasel.”

“I have no regrets. Because it was absolutely delicious.”

“Well,” I said. “I’m glad you got to try it.”

They nodded. We paused on the riverbank and looked back up at the Lily Pad. The plastic sheeting was yellowish, rippled.

“It reminds me of dead skin,” I said.

“Gross,” Ros said. “When does the new window go in?”

“It doesn’t,” I said, and I found myself getting oddly choked up. “I guess—it’s, like, really difficult and expensive to get a piece of custom glass that big? And Henry wanted to do some work on the house anyway.…”

“You’re kidding,” Ros said. “No window?”

“I think there will be windows,” I said. “Just smaller. And like, more throughout.”

“That’s awful,” Ros said.

“I know. On the other hand, maybe fewer birds will fly into it.”

“Maybe,” Ros said.

As if listening to us, a flock of starlings took off from the bushes, made new shapes in the sky. We watched them for a moment, considering the ways they shifted. They made me think of a river, with their own ebb and flow.

“So what’s going to happen in the fall?” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean—you’re not actually staying here, right?”

Ros’s face darkened. “No. I don’t think so.”

“What about home? Are we going to…”

“Are we going to what?” said Ros.

“Be the same,” I said finally. “As we were before. Are we going to be that close?”