On the television screen, two souls were speaking their lines clearly, their bodies held with perfect posture. It wasn’t hard to pick up what was happening in the story because there wasn’t a lot of variety in the scripts souls wrote. In this one, two souls were reconnecting after a long separation. The male’s stint with the See Weeds had come between them, but he’d chosen to be human because he guessed his partner from the Mists Planet would be drawn to these warm-blooded hosts. And, miracle of miracles, he’d found her here.

They all had happy endings.

“You have to consider the intended audience.”

“True. I wish they’d run old human shows again.” He flipped through the channels and frowned. “Used to be a few of them on.”

“They were too disturbing. They had to be replaced with things that weren’t so… violent.”

“The Brady Bunch?”

I laughed. I’d seen that show in San Diego, and Melanie knew it from her childhood. “It condoned aggression. I remember one where a little male child punched a bully, and that was portrayed as being the right thing to do. There was blood.”

Ian shook his head in disbelief but returned to the show with the former See Weed. He laughed at the wrong parts, the parts that were supposed to be touching.

I stared out the window, watching something much more interesting than the predictable story on television.

Across the two-lane road from the inn was a small park, bordered on one side by a school and on the other by a field where cows grazed. There were a few young trees, and an old-fashioned playground with a sandbox, a slide, a set of monkey bars, and one of those hand-pulled merry-go-rounds. Of course there was a swing set, too, and that was the only equipment being used currently.

A little family was taking advantage of the cooler evening air. The father had some silver in his dark hair at the temples; the mother looked many years his junior. Her red brown hair was pulled back in a long ponytail that bobbed when she moved. They had a little boy, no more than a year old. The father pushed the child in the swing from behind, while the mother stood in front, leaning in to kiss his forehead when he swung her way, making him giggle so hard that his chubby little face was bright red. This had her laughing, too—I could see her body shake with it, her hair dancing.

“What are you staring at, Wanda?”

Jared’s question wasn’t anxious, because I was smiling softly at the surprising scene.

“Something I’ve never seen in all my lives. I’m staring at… hope.”

Jared came to stand behind me, peeking out over my shoulder. “What do you mean?” His eyes swept across the buildings and the road, not pausing on the playing family.