“Don’t worry about it. You call us.” Sister gave the departing Fairchild a little wave and closed the door. “Another man in the woodpile,” she announced. “Our no-longer-so-prim resident manager had herself a rendezvous last night, and they went to sleep. It happens to the best of us.”

I decided not to pursue that remark. I took my coffee out to the balcony and watched a single great blue heron wading in a small tidal pool. Several joggers had already made it to the beach, and the horizon was dotted with fishing boats. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and later it would be hot. But right at that moment, it was about as perfect as it gets.

Mary Alice followed me in a few minutes with sweetrolls and more coffee. “I’ll bet you it’s that Jacob Marley,” she said, handing me the sweetrolls and a napkin.

“Jason,” I corrected.

“Poor Fairchild.” Sister sat down in her swirl of pink. “Did you notice, Mouse, how his eyes looked like tragic pools of brimming tears? How his hands lay in his lap, lonely as an empty bird’s nest?”

I looked around at Sister. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Practicing my similes and metaphors for the writers’ conference. Pretty good, huh?”

“In all my years of teaching English, I promise you I’ve never heard anything quite like it.”

“Thanks. That’s what my creative writing instructor at the university said, too.” Sister bit into a sweetroll and wiggled it around on her tongue while she blew over it. “Hot! Hot!”

“You want some ice?”

“It’s okay.” Sister took another bite and wiggled it around, too, exclaiming, “Hot!”

“Why don’t you wait until they cool?”

“They’re not as good cool.”

I suppose that made sense.

“I’m thinking about sending the story I’m working on now to some literary journals,” she said. “I brought it to have it critiqued at the conference.”

“Have I read it?”

“I don’t think so. I’ll let you read it today. It’s about a wheelchair repo man.”

“A wheelchair repo man?”

“It’s real sad. He works for this company that sells wheel-chairs and when the customers don’t pay for them, they send this guy out to get them back. It’s chock-full of angst and existentialism.”

“Sounds like a winner. Nothing quite like a good dose of angst and existentialism.”

“It’s good, Miss Smarty Pants, and don’t you go being smartass about it until you read it. You just thought you were the only person in this family who knew about angst and existentialism, didn’t you?”

Fortunately, someone banged on the door again and saved me from answering.

“Dear God. Grand Central.” Mary Alice got up, brushed the crumbs from her peignoir, and headed toward the door. I followed her, curious, half-afraid that it was Fairchild with bad news.