“Was he your boyfriend?” Perley asked, scrunching up his face so that his bandage puckered.

“I’m not sure I even know what that word means,” I said.

“Like how Mama K and Mama L are,” he said.

“I never had someone like how Mama K and Mama L have each other,” I said. “Never like that.”

Karen tucked Lily and Perley into their sleeping bags, kissing them both soundly. Then she and I went back down to the house, ready to stalk snakes. But for once, there were no snakes to be found.

“Cowards,” I said.

“They know that they’ve broken our hearts,” Karen said.

“What’s the thing about Madcoil again?” I asked.

“Madcoil is a snake monster that killed a bunch of elves,” Karen said. “I didn’t think our snakes were like that.”

“What happened to him?” I asked.

“To Madcoil?” Karen said. “In the end, the elves killed him. After he’d already done a lot of damage.”

Without Lily or Perley there, we didn’t bother to build a fire. Karen said, “Might as well turn off the light to save power. Unless you mind?” So we sat side by side on the sofa, huddled into our coats, staring into the dark, invisible piles of our old possessions inches from our faces.

I stood up and banged my shin on my bicycle.

“What are you doing?” asked Karen, but I didn’t answer. I felt forward with my hands, maneuvering around the window frames and garbage bags, down through the kitchen to the bookshelf, reached up high, felt around. I knew when I had my hands on the right book because it was sticky with grease and dust, soft with cobwebs. With the Best Practices Binder under my arm, I fumbled back to the sofa. I sat down again next to Karen, and I slid the thing over until I felt it fall into her lap.

“What is this?” she asked. “Oh shit, don’t tell me.”

“You should make an entry sometime,” I said.

“Helen, please,” she said, pushing the binder back to me. But we were both unwilling to let go of the day’s good feeling. I wouldn’t take the binder back.

“Best Practices,” I said. “How to Treat Non-Venomous Snakebites.” We sat cocooned. She didn’t try to give me the binder again. I almost thought she’d gone to sleep. Finally she said, “I could consider that. An entry like that could come in useful.”

“There’s a right way to do nearly everything,” I said. “You were perfect today.”

It was dark, so I couldn’t see her smile.

LILY