The spot she picked out for them to stop at, about a quarter mile up a well-used dirt road, was in a clearing inside a spindly offshoot of the forest. They all stepped out of the vehicle and glanced around the old property. The tree line which surrounded the property was thinning from years of neglect. The space was flat and bare, about the size of a city block. It had been trampled so much, for so long that no new grass grew from the claylike topsoil. Part of it was even scorched black. A large gravelly area in the center appeared to have been shaped into a kind of distended ellipse, with a semicircular space joined onto one end. An old vending hut with the sign still intact—Greenwood Valley Fair Snacks—Hot Dogs, Burgers, Fries—stood on the edge of the semicircle. Other clues as to the site's former identity included a large rusted trailer with flat tires, pieces of torn canopy festooning the lower branches of overgrown trees, partially torn flyers ground into the dirt, and a few coils of metal cable left on the gravel.

Rose closed her eyes, tried to imagine the dimensions of the place when it had thrived with people and attractions and life. The sights, sounds, especially the smells. Cotton candy. Hot dogs. Bundles of fresh hay.

“This was it,” she said to her mom. “This was where the fire happened. The fire at the fair. I remember.”

“What do you remember?”

“Screaming. Crying. But there was someone laughing, too. One of those really infectious laughs. I remember thinking how disturbing it was. It couldn’t have been real, could it?”

“I wouldn't have thought so. Andy? I know you were only young. Do you remember any of this?”

He looked up from his cell phone, gazed around at some length, then shrugged. “I dunno. There's something familiar about this place. Can't put my finger on it, though. Don't know anything about a fire. What's the deal, Mom?”

So, Blythe explained what had happened, who they were with that day—Dad's friend and his older son—but she left out the part where she'd been seeing Hank Bonden behind Dad's back. Rose couldn't find it in her to blame anyone for that affair. Mom and Dad had never been close. She'd always felt that. And knowing what had happened in college, how they'd first met, the crossed wires, thwarted desires and such, left Rose oddly ambivalent about the whole thing.

What would I have done in her place?

“Don't know who that is,” Andy admitted, referring to the Bondens. “Something about that crazy laugh, though.” He turned to Rose. “Wasn't it one of those laughing dummies you get at fairs and circuses and stuff? You know, the super creepy ones that give you nightmares?”