Christmas 2000 came and went; they had a little tree in the home in Palo Alto Hills and kept up their tradition of ten dollars or less in gifts. Peyton cheated though: hers was a box with a model airplane inside.

“It’s great.”

“The airplane’s not the gift, Des.” She grabbed his hand and squeezed it. “Let’s go on a trip—back to Australia, to where you were born. Visit the remains of the home. Go to Oklahoma, where you grew up.”

He knew what she wanted: for him to visit the places that had caused him so much pain and somehow come to grips with what had happened and move on.

He agreed. He was desperate enough to try anything.

In Australia, he walked across the paddocks where he’d once played. He visited the thicket where he’d built the fort that day, even straightened the overturned rocks he’d set down eighteen years ago. The house was still there, or at least its burned remains. He stood in the yard, inside the fence, where he’d rushed into the fire. There was no breakthrough. He didn’t cry. He felt only sadness.

They stayed in a hotel in Adelaide for a week while he tried to find Charlotte. But since Desmond didn’t know her last name, it was impossible to find her. Over a hundred thousand people had been part of the relief efforts in the wake of the 1983 bushfires. And it had been almost eighteen years; she might have left the area, or left Australia altogether.

In Oklahoma City, they rented a car and drove south, through Norman, then Noble, and finally onto Slaughterville Road.

He pulled off at the home where he’d grown up. Orville’s home. It had been part of a farm once, but the farmland had been sold, maybe by Orville himself or someone who’d owned it before him.

The new owners had painted the home and put on a new roof. The asphalt shingles sparkled in the clear April day. A Chevy truck and a Ford sedan sat under a newly erected metal carport. A red Huffy bike sat on the front porch. It was about the size of the one Desmond had bought at the pawnshop—the bike Orville had threatened to take away.

The shed stood open. The old Studebaker was gone. Desmond’s eyes lingered on the patch of ground where Dale Epply had bled to death while he held the lawnmower blade.

Peyton put an arm around him.

“You want to go in?”

“No. I’ve seen enough.”

They drove past the grocery store that had sustained him, up Highway 77 into Noble. The small town hadn’t changed much. They ate at a small cafe on Third Street and walked the three blocks to the library.