“Four pregnancies. First came the boys: Jason, Peter and Jimmy. Scott was happy. He had his fishing buddies, someone to sit next to him on game day. But damn it if I didn’t want a girl, even though you and I both know how much trouble they are. Careful what you wish for, right? The good Lord gave me two. Jenny, she’s a saint. She looks after all of us. But Molly? She’s a piece of glass in my eye.”

“You have a beautiful family,” Sherri says.

Val laughs. “Damn, I wish Scotty could be here, but it’s Friday fish fry. We own Murphy’s, the supper club down the street.” She points out the side window. “Scott can cook anything, but we keep it old-school because the young people think it’s campy. We’ve got relish trays and pickled herring, cinnamon rolls, the whole bit. I used to help him out until someone rammed a cart into my knee.”

“I’d love to check it out next time,” Sherri says, although she knows she’ll probably never see Val again. “What ever happened to Danny?”

“Oh, he lives in his grandmother’s place now. He’s still at the resort. It has a new corporate owner now. You’d almost never know it had anything to do with Playboy back in the day.”

“Did he ever get married?”

Val raises her hand and spreads her fingers wide. “Last time I checked, about five times. God love him, he’ll always be Danny. Falling in love never gets old for some people. He kept your friend’s weird dog, you know. I swear Goldie was scared of her own tail.” She pauses. “You sure left on a low note. That was tough, what happened. It sure was.”

People change on the outside, but not so much inside. After all these years, Sherri can see that Val, in her gruff way, is trying to address Arthur’s death as gently as possible. Sherri’s pain has been so private for so long that it feels good to talk about it with one of the few people in her life who’d actually known him.

Val continues, “When you left, I honestly thought you’d come back. I kept everything on your side of our room just the way it was. But you shot out of here like a bat out of hell.”

“I guess I did,” Sherri says.

“I can see why.” Val grows quiet, reflective. “Forty years almost. How did that happen? Days are long and all that.”

“I can’t believe it myself. The days really do run away like wild horses over the hills.”

“Well, you’re back now. Took you long enough to return. Everyone does. These kids, they try to live in big cities and then they discover the traffic and the sky-high rents. Suddenly Wisconsin doesn’t look so bad—”

Sherri interrupts her. “Val—”