“Blight nothing,” Amy said. “I've always loved this place. Even before.” Bobby surveyed the grounds—piles of brick from crumbled walls, peeling paint and cracked wooden siding, puncture vine and purple loosestrife sprouting from the cracks in the concrete ramps. It had seen better days. It would have been easier to love in its prime.

“That's the spirit,” Elmer said. He pulled Marcia into an up-tempo waltz right there on the pea gravel. “This place is our retirement fund, honey. It's all we got worth anything.” Elmer was an odd duck, legendary for impromptu jigs, occasional outbursts of singing.

“You can't spend property, old man,” Marcia said, but she laughed, let him spin her across the gravel.

Bobby envied Elmer his lightness of heart, envied the way everyone, Marcia, Amy, accepted his dad's odd quirks and habits. Elmer could decide he was going to eat fire instead of dinner, Bobby thought, and both Amy and Marcia would be delighted by his innovative thinking. Bobby felt he'd lost the trick of joy, could no longer conjure happiness.

“If I heat these up,” Amy said, “can you two stay for dinner?”

Marcia and Elmer were having their own hard times, the recession having come for them like it had come for everyone. Still, Marcia would fill her own freezer and theirs with doughy rolls stuffed with ground beef, black pepper, cabbage. They'd have shelves full of jars—apple pie filling, pickled beets, green beans and corn. Amy, who believed in good company, that time spent together was a powerful expression of love, would insist on regular family meals.

“Let me help you.” Marcia took the applesauce back from Bobby, and Bobby watched as the women walked close to one another, smiling. He envied them this easy affection, wished he understood the magic of these women, of Elmer, for that matter, the light they all shone into dark places. He worried again about the deepening lines in Amy's face. He wondered where Amy's seemingly boundless good humor ended, where Marcia's did. He wanted to know where the limit was, how to see the line of too much to ask, how in God's creation Elmer had managed to stay on the right side of it all these years. He felt near desperate to learn this lesson before it was too late.

“You poked around much in these buildings?” Elmer drew him back into the moment.

“Yeah, some. There's a lot to look through.”

Elmer nodded. “Even I don't know all this place holds, but I got something to show you.”