Kathy laughed. “He’s in his British mood,” she told Bev. “Oh, I do say, really.”

He glared at the two of them with a haughty look, and Kathy was annoyed. She didn’t want Bev to think her brother was a phony.

“C’mon,” Kathy insisted. “You can’t clown your way out of keeping your promise. Two years without driving isn’t that long. It’ll come back to you. If you’re afraid to drive, I will.”

“Or we can take my car,” Bev suggested.

“I’ll drive,” he said finally, and stepped around to the passenger side of the VW, holding the door open for them.

“At least,” Kathy said, “you didn’t forget your manners in prison.”

Kathy got in back and Bev slipped into the front. Billy walked around, got behind the wheel and started the car. He let out the clutch too quickly; the VW lurched forward and pulled out onto the wrong side of the street.

“Maybe I should drive,” Kathy said.

He said nothing, but hunched over the wheel as he pulled back to the right and drove very slowly. After several minutes of driving in silence, he pulled into a service station.

“I do believe I need some petrol,” he said to the attendant.

“Is he all right?” Bev whispered.

“He’ll be okay,” Kathy said. “He gets this way every so often. He’ll snap out of it.”

As they watched, his lips moved silently. Then he looked around, quickly taking in his surroundings. Seeing Kathy in the back of the VW, he nodded and smiled.

“Hi,” he said. “Beautiful day for a drive.”

“Where are we going?” Kathy asked as he pulled out and drove smoothly and with sudden confidence.

“I want to see Clear Creek,” he said. “I dreamed about it so many times during the past two years in … in …

“Bev knows,” Kathy said. “I explained to her all about what you did.”

He looked at Bev thoughtfully. “Not too many people wouid go around driving with an ex-convict just out on parole.”

Kathy saw Bev looking him straight in the eye. “I don’t judge people that way,” Bev replied, “just as I don’t expect to be judged.”

In the rear-view mirror, Kathy saw Billy’s eyebrows go up and his lips purse. She could tell that Bev’s remark impressed him.

He drove to Clear Creek, where he’d gone camping so often, and gazed at it as if taking in the view for the first time. Kathy watched the water glinting in the sunlight through the trees, and she understood why he loved the place.

“I’ve got to paint this again,” he said. “But I’ll do it different now. I want to see all the places I knew, and do them over.”

“It hasn’t changed,” Bev said.

“But I have.”

After they had driven around the area for two hours, Bev invited them to her mobile home for dinner later that evening. They drove back to Spring Street so that she could pick up her car, and she gave them directions to the Morrison Trailer Court.