“Can we watch the iPad? Please?”

Hallie nodded. “It’s in the kitchen.”

The girls ran off quick as lightning. “The iPad with movies hidden inside—it’s their favorite thing. I don’t let them very often.”

“I saw Walter.” Colleen didn’t want to talk about movies or iPads.

“Where?” Hallie asked as though she was as tired of his name as she already was of the day.

“At the river park.”

“No, that wasn’t him. He’s out of town.” Hallie shifted on the swing.

“He was with a woman, Hallie. A woman who was crying and had her arms around him. He was consoling her, looking at her, and he kissed her.”

“Nope.” Hallie’s facial expression didn’t change. She rose to her feet and stood as still as the carved mermaid statue in the park, her face placid with denial.

“Yes.”

“You’re trying to make me feel the way you felt that day. You’re trying to make me understand. But I’ve known, all these years I’ve known and I’ve tortured myself about it. You don’t have to—”

“That is not what I’m doing. I’m telling you the truth.” Colleen took a few steps closer. Hallie reached her hand out and for a moment Colleen thought she might slap her, but instead she grabbed on to the swing’s rope to steady herself. “He’s in Columbia, where he’s supervising a housing project.”

“No, he’s with a women whose red hair is as bright as her VW Bug.”

“Why are you doing this?” Hallie slapped her hand against the edge of the wooden swing and then flinched at the sting; she shook her hand out.

“I’m not doing anything. I’m telling you what I saw.”

“Thank you, Lena.” Hallie’s words were robotic, stilted. She turned quickly and entered the house, leaving the door ajar while calling out for her girls.

“Okay, adorables, it’s time to go. We’re taking Grandy grocery shopping.” A pause followed and then high-pitched little-girl voices before Colleen heard her dad’s voice join them and then the sounds of leaving.

Colleen sat on the newly vacated swing and shifted against the back pillow. Dad had had this swing made when they were in middle school—by an old friend who needed work, he’d said. He’d taken the friend a single bed mattress and had him build around it with nautical ropes hanging from the ceiling. If ever Colleen thought of taking a nap, she thought of this swing, of this musty-smelling mattress and the many blankets and pillows that had come and gone.

She closed her eyes. It had been Walter, right? Yes, of course it had. She hadn’t imposed his image on some random man kissing a crying woman. Her memories might haunt her, but not under the bright lights of Watersend River Park.