Her eye is drawn to a massive vinyl overhang that reads PUFFY’S VAPE on what used to be Bev’s Flowers. There are signs on the big glass windows that say ASK ME HOW FLAVORS SAVED MY LIFE and URBAN SMOKE. Marshall’s Department Store is now an upscale café, and the town has a bookstore, quaint and classy. Just seeing it makes her want to weep. Her father would have loved that—he’d always bemoaned the lack of a bookstore in East Troy.

Finally, she turns and musters the nerve to look at the building—her building, the former home of Taylor’s Timeshop. All those hours of her childhood in that store! She could smell the chicory scent of her father’s polyester shirts, hear the cuckoo flying through the little door, all the clocks ticking and chimes ringing in her head.

The stenciling on the big windows reads LAKE COUNTRY YOGA. Jerry had turned the building she’d grown up in into a yoga studio? She walks to the door and gives it a push. The wall between the office and the showroom has been knocked down, and the lowered ceiling had been removed, revealing ornate, painted tin tiles. Sherri can’t believe they’ve been there all along. The space is beautiful, bright and spare, painted a pleasant off-white with gray undertones. The once scratched and scuffed wood floors gleam. A middle-aged woman with a long braid stands behind the reception desk. “Can I help you?”

“No,” Sherri says, overcome. “I’m in the—”

“Sherri?” She steps away from the desk to approach her. “Sherri Taylor? Oh. My. God. Is that really you?”

“Raylee?”

“I go by Lee now.” She’s taller than Sherri, and her hair is marked by dramatic stripes of gray, but the gentle brown eyes and friendly, curious nature are unmistakable. “What on earth are you doing here after so long?”

“Well, Jerry, you know, he’s sick, and the building is technically mine. He’s been managing it for me for years. I’m here to sell it … or something.”

“Oh, don’t sell. Please. Jerry gives me a break on rent. I shop for him, take care of stuff. I don’t make much on this place, but you’d be surprised how busy we get on weekends, especially in the summer. We have an intro class, and a power flow, and the first Sunday we practice asanas and—”

“You still don’t stop talking, do you?”

Raylee laughs. “I missed you so much when you left, Sher. You were always so nice to me. Hey, do you still have that brown car? I thought you were going to back up and drive right over that dealer, I really did.”

“I sold that car long ago,” Sherri says. “I couldn’t wait to get rid of it.”