The story of the chipped tooth was told, and I was laughing, we both were, until it led to the other, bigger story, the story he didn’t want to tell, but for some reason he couldn’t stop, and as he talked, as it slowly dawned on me where this was all headed, I was filled with an intense mix of feelings—sick and achy, sad. It was kick-in-the-gut painful. I even felt a strange admiration for him as he fumbled his way through the details, for this was why I had first loved him. Mostly, though, I tried to listen as the tears fell, just listen, all the while knowing that when he was done telling me everything, it would be my turn to do the same.

BEA MYERLY

BEA MYERLY

WHEN MR. WELCH APPROACHED ME ABOUT ADDING MY VERSION OF THINGS TO THIS story, I told him I would only participate on one condition: I get to write the end. I thought he would refuse. Instead, he agreed immediately. I assumed Mr. Welch or his ex-wife would want to have the last word. (Point of fact, I’m not sure if she’s an official ex-wife yet.)

No one is more surprised than I am that I’m left to finish telling this story, that I’m the one chosen to make sense of all this ruin.

On a personal note, when Mr. Welch gave me what he’d written, I found a cozy spot in my room and began to read. I didn’t get far. Pug-nosed little chunk of a girl? Barrel-chested? A cluster of pebble-sized pimples dotting my fleshy forehead?

I couldn’t believe it! So I confronted Mr. Welch. “How could you distort me this way? This is how I look to you?” “Of course not,” he said, “but at that time you were an annoying student, and that’s how all annoying students look to me.”

Needless to say, I didn’t read any more.

So the end.

The BHA Annual House and Garden tour was a huge success. They kept the Ashworth-Brody house open two extra hours to accommodate the record crowds.

The next day Anna Brody and Philip Ashworth left the Heights for good. Within days, a fleet of moving vans arrived and the house was emptied. For a while, it was all the talk—where did they go, why did they leave, was it something we did?

All anybody knew was they were gone, and their empty house was on the market. Frida Fabritz got the exclusive, but my dad says now no one can afford the house, so good luck, Frida. By the fall, everybody was talked out about the Ashworths. Maybe because the whole world had started to fall apart. My mom and dad ask me all the time if I’m worried about the future. They can sense I’m upset—and I am, but not about what they think.