Raylee shook her head. “I wish I did. Mama says I’ll get hurt.”

“You probably will, but that’s OK.” Sherri pulled back her bangs and bent down to reveal a scar along her hairline. “I got this when I wasn’t paying attention and rode my bike up the back of a tractor that was parked on Swoboda Road.”

Raylee seemed fascinated by the scar. She ran her finger slowly across it with clinical detachment. “Did it hurt?”

“Hey ding-dong, what do you think? And don’t call your mom ‘Mama.’”

“Why not?”

“You’re old enough for plain old ‘Mom.’”

“I’m just talking how I want to talk.”

“Trust me. People will make fun of you, and you don’t want that.” Sherri saw her own self in this lonely little girl on the square. “The girls around here, you know how they are, especially the farm girls. They’ve got lots of brothers. You say one thing they don’t like and they’ll sit on your face. C’mon, let’s find some wheels for you before you turn into a mushroom.”

Deep in the back corner of the garage, Sherri discovered her old orange Huffy bike with a banana seat and streamers hanging from the wide handlebars. The Sundance. Her father had given it to her for her eighth birthday, when she was just about Raylee’s age. That was when life had really started for Sherri. She and Roberta could finally explore the country roads, go to the little convenience store in Miramar for candy, ride to the playground at Stone School, and swim at Booth Lake. She loved discovering the world beyond the town square, and loved her first real taste of freedom. She pedaled furiously, her hair flying behind her and her mouth clamped shut because once she’d accidentally swallowed a big, hairy moth and felt the furious beating of wings in her throat. Looking at that old bike, covered in spiderwebs and dust, she felt a surprising tug of nostalgia for the childhood she’d never thought she’d cared much about. Up until that afternoon, sitting at the lake with Berta, she’d never even thought of her childhood as a separate part of her life, or as a thing to leave behind.

She pulled the bike out onto the driveway. The wheels were flat, the rusty chain sagged, and the vinyl seat was yellow and sticky.

“I can’t ride that,” said Raylee. She stood with her hands on her hips.