“Did you know that despite their size, herons only weigh about five pounds?” Nate asked, not looking up from his field guide. “Unbelievable, right? It’s the hollow bones. All birds have hollow bones.”

Helen took in a breath. Her head ached. Her own bones felt solid and stiff as concrete, heavy and sore.

“Weren’t you going to go get us wine and pizza?”

“Yeah, yeah, of course,” he said, closing the book. He ran into the bedroom to get changed and grab his wallet.

“Hon?” he called as he walked back down the hallway. “Did you take any cash out of here?”

“No.”

He shook his head. “That’s weird. There’s about forty bucks less than I thought I had.”

“You used a bunch of cash yesterday,” she reminded him. “At breakfast, then later at the store. Oh, you went out and got beer, remember?”

“Right,” he said. “Maybe I spent more than I thought. Or maybe that kid at the store didn’t give me the right change.” He counted the money one more time, stared at it with a puzzled expression, then announced he was off. “Be back soon,” he promised.

. . .

By the time Nate returned with pizza and two bottles of wine, Helen had taken the world’s most unsatisfying lukewarm shower and changed into sweats and one of Nate’s T-shirts.

“This one’s from a vineyard in Vermont,” he’d said proudly, holding up the bottle of Marquette.

This was to be part of their new life: buying local. Eating and drinking local.

But the truth was, at that point she didn’t care if the goddamn wine was made from skunk cabbage from the bog: she just wanted a drink.

Nate had also bought a local paper. The story of the crash was on the front page. Helen saw the smiling school photos of the dead teenagers and flipped it over, unable to look. It was too terrible. She was trying hard not to take it as an ominous sign of their new lives here.

She took a deep breath, looked away from the newspaper.

We are meant to be here, she told herself. We are living the life of our dreams.

“There’s going to be a vigil tonight at the high school,” Nate said. “Maybe we should go.”

Helen shook her head. “No. I can’t bear it. And it would be weird. We just got here. We’re not really part of the community yet. I’d feel…voyeuristic or something, you know?”

Nate nodded. “I see what you mean.”

After they finished the pizza (which was crappy, with too-sweet sauce and canned mushrooms, but still satisfying) and polished off the first bottle of wine, Nate got out his laptop and started playing the animal noises.

Finally, mercifully, he stopped, put the computer away.