Sherri weaves through the crowd at the bar, feeling like an imposter in a space that is filled with people who are known to each other. They are in book clubs and cookie exchanges. They play “sheeps” (or Sheepshead) and bridge. They see concerts, share recipes, go for walks, sit in the stands to cheer on their friends’ kids in volleyball, deliver meals when someone falls ill. They know each other’s brothers and sisters and cousins and parents. They are part of a giant, tightly woven net, a net she thought she’d slipped out of forever.

Still, Jerry said that East Troy is Sherri’s town, and though she’s spent nearly forty years trying to prove otherwise, she can’t help but wonder if he’s been right all along. Everything is so familiar to her, in a way no place has ever felt since. Until that moment, she’s never truly appreciated the weight of her decision to leave, never realized how much she’d given up, or how she’d let guilt rule her life. She has friends in Palm Springs, good friends. But the friendships in this small town are born of constant, repetitive exposure.

Sherri sits on a stool at the bar and considers what to do with the building. She finds it easier to think about real estate than this new information about Arthur. She’d always assumed she’d sell, and is surprised to find herself thinking instead about keeping a stake in her past. Maybe she and Bayard can “summer” in East Troy the way that people “winter” in Palm Springs. She could ask Jerry’s son to manage the property, or maybe Raylee would want to take it on, in exchange for reduced rent? Sherri thinks about updating the kitchen, sanding the floors, covering the drab walls with a fresh coat of paint, buying some new furniture. She could even get a boat and rent a slip on Booth Lake—Beulah was out of the question. She’d never be able to swim in that lake again.

Beulah, Beulah. She finds it difficult to peel her version of the events leading up to Arthur’s death away from this new narrative. The conversations and moments she’d shared with Arthur were perfectly preserved in her mind, like specimens suspended in resin. But that evening, she thinks not of what she and Arthur had said to each other, but of what they hadn’t said. She’d always assumed Arthur had wanted her to be part of his life. What a fool she was! The only future he’d spoken about was Sherri’s alone. Her “becoming.” That last day with him—she’d slept. Any conversation they might have had didn’t happen, and then she had that horrible party. He’d tried to tell her something, hadn’t he? Something had been on his mind. Had she noticed the slightest hesitation in his manner, a twinge of guilt?