The dining room furniture was antique but not what he remembered. The fire had taken the table, the china hutch, the buffet. It had burned right through the serving window from the kitchen. Not a single scorch mark remained, covered up with new wallpaper and paint, both decades-old now. It was easy to imagine the fire had never happened at all.

"They did a good job with the house," he said, following Norma into the kitchen.

Nothing was as he remembered it in here. From the cabinets to the laminate floor, the frilly curtains with terriers printed on them, the yellow wallpaper. It was like stepping into a time capsule rather than stepping into an earlier time in his life. Everything had been replaced in the 1980s, aside from the gadgets Norma had shoved on every free inch of counterspace: a breadmaker, a blender, a four-slice toaster. The gas range was a recent addition as well, shiny brushed steel with cast iron grates.

"I see you don't have to cook on a woodstove anymore. That must be nice."

Norma scowled. "Woodstove? We never had a woodstove."

"You didn't? Wasn't that where I burned my—?"

Aunt Norma's scowl deepened. He was sure they had one, but he let it go. Maybe he'd gotten it mixed up with somewhere else, a friend's house or a school trip to some living history museum. The incident that left the pale scar on his left hand was almost forty years ago. For all he knew, he'd burned it on a regular stove and the woodstove was just something he'd dreamed about.

"Burned your what, Martin?" Sheila asked, looking at him with professional curiosity.

"Nothing," he said, feeling silly.

"Well, sit down, you two. Make yourselves at home."

They sat around the kitchen table. Martin looked up at the cream-colored rotary telephone on the wall. He remembered Norma speaking hurriedly on it, a splash of blood on her face, smearing it on the receiver. Asking the person on the other end to send someone quick, Ruby's done something bad, she's cut herself real bad.

He tried to remember the incident itself, how it had happened, but nothing came back to him. He always assumed she'd tried to commit suicide. The long scar on her right wrist had been his only proof, as neither Norma nor his mother had spoken of it since.

Norma picked up the teapot. "Tea or coffee, either of you?"

Sheila smiled. "I'd love a cup of tea if you're having some, thanks."

"I'm fine," Martin said.

"So what brings you back here after all this time, Marty?" She spoke while facing the wall as she filled the teapot in the sink. "Not that we don't appreciate the visit."

"I guess you don't watch the news."

"Only the locals."

She twisted a dial on the stove and set the teapot on the open flame. Then she came and sat with them, grunting as she eased herself onto a cushioned chair.

She'd always seemed old to Martin but now he could really see it. Her skin looked like tea-stained crepe paper over a roadmap of thin blue veins. Folds of wrinkled skin hung from her neck below the jaw and her silver hair had thinned. When she clasped her hands on the table, every knuckle bone was white like a chicken drumstick.