We sat for a moment, not speaking. The slow rhythm of the young girl’s ball hitting the wall of the abandoned fire station two blocks away was like a laborsome ticking of time.

“Have you noticed how deserted it is here?” Amy asked.

“Yes,” I said. “I sometimes think that I’ll come here one day and everything will be closed. Everyone will have died or moved away.”

Amy lifted her face to the sun and closed her eyes. Her thumb stroked the back of my thumb. She said softly, “I went to the cemetery this morning, to Arch’s grave. I think he and Avrum were the last two people of that summer.” She opened her eyes and looked toward the mountain behind the Inn. “Our tree’s gone, too, isn’t it?”

“Several years ago,” I said. “A storm, I think.”

“I thought it would last forever.”

“Me, too.”

“I wonder if it missed us.” she said.

I tried to be casual—wanted the words to sound casual: “I don’t know about it, but I did.”

Her hands tightened on my hand.

“Your necklace,” I said. “It’s the stone, isn’t it?”

Her eyes searched me in surprise. “Do you still have yours?” she asked.

“It’s in my briefcase.”

“It is?”

“Yes.”

She lifted her head again, nestled it against her shoulders. A smile eased into her face. “It’s really childish, isn’t it? But I’ve never been without it. Never. I wore it in my wedding. You know—something blue. My mother wanted me to wear a blue garter, but I wouldn’t. I wanted the necklace.” She pulled one hand away from my hand and touched the stone with her finger. “I think my mother knew why.”

“I used to keep mine in my pocket, but I was afraid of losing it,” I told her. “That’s why it’s in my briefcase. I told my children that it was my magic eye, that before I could paint anything, I had to look through it. I said it so often, I think I began to believe it myself. But you know kids. Eventually they told me it was nothing but a rock.”

She did not reply for a moment. She was again gazing at the mountain, at the place where our tree had been. Then she said, “My girls are the same way. Sometimes I think I used up all their magic, that I didn’t have any left to pass on to them. And that’s a horrible thing to do to children.” She paused and looked at her hand in mine. She opened her fingers, closed them again around my hand. “Do you know I’m having dinner with you tonight?”

“No, but I’m glad. I was going to suggest it.”

“Carter insisted.”

“Carter. Our friend Carter,” I said. “He’s in love again.”