She came in the afternoon, not bothering to announce her intentions in any way, just walking around the side of the house and leaning her bike against the fence like she usually did. I was standing with my shirt off, the humidity such that even the menial task of painting was making me sweat. I’d decided green was best for the goose house. I didn’t want it to stand out too starkly from the rainforest surrounds of my property. The birds were sitting all around me on the grass, beaks tucked into backs or feathery breasts, round, featureless stones. I’d finished the sides and stood dabbing paint onto the front façade of the playhouse when I heard the unmistakable tread of squeaky sneakers on the lawn behind me.

Two weeks. But already some of the bruises and grazes Amanda had come away from her ordeal with were easing, sinking back into her colorful flesh, swallowed by the flowers and portraits and leaning, curving buildings on her skin. If there was one thing Amanda did well, it was heal. She still had two black eyes, but those eyes were smiling, as always. I glanced at her, raised my brush in greeting. She stood and watched my work for a while, squinting in the sun, before Celine raised her head from where she lay curled in a ball among the birds, a camouflaged creature revealing its true form.

“Oh lord!” Amanda grabbed at her chest. “That was a good trick.”

“I think she thinks she’s one of them,” I said. Celine had indeed integrated with the birds, but it hadn’t been smooth sailing. As I’d knelt by the bathtub, pouring warm water from a jug over the stiff-legged dog, I’d heard the indignant slapping of webbed feet on the floorboards behind me. The soapy water was swirling with dead fleas. I’d turned and spied two geese jabbering in their strange language, instinctual confusion at the sound of the water in the bath and the distinct lack of Neil Diamond in the air. The birds had eyed the intruder dog, clicking, tittering. Celine had barked and they’d fluttered away, a frenzy of panicked wings. Over a couple of days, the animals had come to some kind of silent agreement. It became obvious to the birds, I supposed, that Celine was too fat and too awkward to chase them. And to Celine, perhaps, that Bitey Bulger was going to bite no matter what she did, but it wasn’t all that hard.

Amanda had left me alone for the time I’d been back. She’d found out somehow, in her almost supernatural way, that Kelly had asked me to come home. It didn’t take me or Kelly to tell her that. Amanda might have heard it, the anguish in my voice when I called to tell her what had happened to Kevin Driscoll. When I’d told her, Amanda had joined the small, select crew of vastly different characters who knew. To the rest of the world, what happened to Kevin was unclear.