FAR BACK FROM the road, at the rear of the lot, was the old scrapped Buick that had once belonged to Ron Coons (drunk, he’d sideswiped it on the Shaheen Falls bridge, almost killed himself), stripped gradually of all its valuable parts, now a tireless abandoned hulk, listing to one side in the high grass. Marya sees it clearly, has almost no need to remember: the glamorous Buick “coup” with the crazy blue paint, peacock-blue, and the red zigzag lightning bolts on its fenders, the chrome long ago gone to rust. . . . One summer hornets had tried to build a nest in the rear window, until the children had driven them away. Occasionally there were mice, garter snakes, unknown scampering creatures beneath its ripped seats. Depending upon the degree of dampness in the air its smells were varied, complex: oil, gasoline, cigarettes, stale urine, perhaps even blood. (Coons had lost a lot of blood in the crash, it was said. But the stains inside appeared to be oil. They smelled mainly of oil.)

Inside it could be cozy, on days when the air was slightly chilly but not cold. When it rained only lightly. When the sun didn’t beat down too fiercely on the metal roof. The children played at driving the car, played at racing, pressing down the clutch, the gas pedal, the brake, screaming as they pounded at the dead mute horn. They turned the steering wheel violently to one side and then to the other, they half shut their eyes and saw the road fly beneath them. . . . (The steering wheel was still covered by an elasticized strip of fuzzy blue cloth, faded, filthy, unraveling: like a caterpillar’s fuzz to the touch, Marya thought.) The dials and gauges on the dashboard were badly rusted but their mysterious numerals remained; the glove compartment was still locked, and so twisted it couldn’t be pried open. The blue Buick was the children’s favorite because it had the most style and because it had belonged to Ron Coons. Also, it was at the very rear of the lot, a considerable hike from the house.