Jess had met Melissa outside the school and then brought me over and introduced us. Melissa just seemed relieved that we weren’t going to ask her to volunteer for a committee. Her quick wit and comfort with her own priorities drew me in. Even though Jess and Melissa were opposites in nearly every way, they shared a sense of having given their fucks away a long time ago.

Liz was different. I was the one who approached her, after I saw her standing on her own, looking hopeful and nervous, as Carson ran around the school’s playground. She wore black capri pants and a workout tank, the Winchester uniform, but she hadn’t put on the brittle shell that normally goes with it.

“This is a lot, isn’t it?” I said to her as I sidestepped to where she stood by the monkey bars.

She shot me a grateful look. “It really is. Plus I have this one to keep an eye on.” I followed her gaze down to Luke, where he toddled around the playground, looking for something particularly indigestible to stick into his mouth. I smiled as Emily skipped over to Luke and patted him on the head. She knelt down and showed him a dandelion she had picked and blew it out for him. He let out a deep-throated laugh that made all of us smile.

“She’s really sweet,” Liz said as she crossed her arms over her chest. She tightened the ponytail behind her head. “I’m Liz, by the way. I think I’ve seen you walking your cute little pug around the neighborhood.”

It was a normal introduction, mundane. So uneventful that I might not have remembered it at all, or might have written it off as just a surface encounter. But there was something about her—a baked-in goodness, a sense that she was truly a kind person—that made me ask her if she wanted to hang out sometime. She wasn’t flashy like Melissa and Jess, who had their own energies. She was just herself. A good person. Her presence was quieter but still authentic.

After the park playdate, Melissa invited Jess and me to her house for some wine, and before I left the playground, I stopped and turned back to Liz.

“Would you like to come?” I said.

And the rest was Whispering Farms history. The four of us against the rest.

My fingers quivered on the planchette as I opened my eyes. “We would like to speak to Liz, or whoever is around her. Liz, can you hear us?” My voice came out hoarse, even though I had practiced the words all day, repeating them in my head as we watched the fireworks. Liz, can you hear us?