“Why can’t I be mad at you?” he’d once asked her. Anger might have been the appropriate response for Sherri now, but what good was it? Arthur was dead, and what a shocking but wonderfully affirming miracle it had been to see part of him alive in his son. Any stirrings of anger she felt weren’t directed at Arthur, but at life itself—how fast it goes, how strange it is. She knows she’ll never get answers to the questions that swirl around in her head.

She orders a brandy old-fashioned, press. It is the perfect Wisconsin drink. While she waits for Roberta, she listens to Tom Petty—she has a feeling the jukebox selection hasn’t changed much over the years—and overhears people talk about the heat, who is winning the fastball league, and how the local sports teams are going to look for the fall season. They discuss the parties coming up, the ones they just went to and who they saw—who was wasted and who screwed who. The guys on the other side of her are strangely passionate about the ethanol-free gas at the Kwik Trip.

East Troy has always been a progressive farming community, but it is now a more conservative part of the state. She has a hard time putting her finger on the political climate. It strikes her as a place of contradictions. She weighs the We Back the Badge yard signs and organic co-ops, faded Scott Walker bumper stickers and Raylee’s yoga studio. A bookstore and a Lions Club. Lattes and custard. Titanium racing bikes and bratwurst.

The bars in Palm Springs are sleek and fancy. She doesn’t realize how much she’s missed the basement-like atmosphere of Wisconsin bars until she sinks back into the ambience of faux-wood paneled walls, baskets of free popcorn, electronic dartboards, and vintage beer signs.

“Sherri Taylor? My God, girl. Is that you?”

Roberta takes her place at the stool next to her. Sherri is so relieved to see her old friend on this strange day that she wishes she could fall into her arms in a deep hug. She would never guess Roberta was approaching sixty if she didn’t know that they were born on the same day. Her hair is dyed a striking jet black. Sherri doesn’t know many women their age who still wear tank tops, but Roberta does—as she should. She is incredibly fit and toned. She has an actual waist, and the arms of a twenty-year-old. Even her face is muscular. Roberta waves to the bartender, revealing a tattoo of a barbell across the inside of her wrist.

He sets a gin and tonic in front of her without her having to order it. “Bombay with lime, just like you like it. Made it as soon as I saw you walk in.”

“Thanks, Jimmy.” Roberta takes the drink.