“Ruth’s a real nice lady,” Siggy put in softly. “Shouldn’t keep to herself so much.”

“Some people they like to keep to themselves,” Frank’s mom said. “Looking after a husband and kids isn’t every woman’s idea of heaven on a June day.”

“Lucky for Sal it’s yours, then,” Otto said.

Frank’s mom didn’t respond. Frank noticed that the men seemed uncomfortable.

“Was she married to that English fella?” Otto was peering into the mouth of his empty Coke bottle.

“You know it very well she wasn’t,” Frank’s mom said. “Why you want to chew on that? You like an old woman.”

Otto looked up at her curiously. “So you don’t think marriage is a sacred institution then?”

Frank couldn’t believe how red his mom went, and so suddenly. His dad, staring into the floor, was poking and pinching at his own ear as if he wanted to tear it off.

Turning quickly to his dad, her voice faltering, his mom said, “Sal, the spoiled stock in the back, did you get rid of it? I not having there no longer.”

Frank caught Otto staring at the gap in his mom’s blouse. Why didn’t she just leave? He began to feel angry. The store bell rang. Annie and the Indian boy came in. For some reason Annie was holding her hair angled across her face like a veil. She pulled up, clearly surprised to see all these people.

“Where you been, Annie?” their mom called.

“Just down by the branch. We found some arrowheads.” She pulled a couple from her pocket with her free hand, her other still holding her hair across her face. “Raj found a neat trilobite fossil.”

Everyone looked at the dark boy, who held out the calcified creature and said, “This varmint won’t be troubling you folks no more.”

“Boy’s a regular cutup,” Otto said. “Weren’t you going back to England, boy?”

“He’s going to stay here,” Annie said.

Bennet smiled at her. “Like all the other boys: following you around with his tongue in the dust.”

“No one’s following me around.”

“Who, little ol’ me?” Siggy cut in playfully, with his hand on his chest. “Why, them boys are merely bein’ helpful.”

This was making Frank uncomfortable, all these men staring at Annie, their eyes lingering on his sister’s bare legs.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Annie said.

Tapping the Indian boy on the shoulder, Siggy pointed at Magnus. “That fella there, he’s from England.”

“Can’t you tell he’s a bit light in the balls?” Otto said.

“Eh!” Sal cut in angrily. “Two ladies here.”

“Better than being light in the cranial cavity. Of French and English extraction, my good fellow.” Magnus introduced himself to the boy. “An exile among barbarians like your good self, brought here by a Yank GI whose epitaph reads: SPECTACULAR EXPECTORATOR.”

“Come on, Raj.” Annie took hold of the boy’s hand to lead him through the crowd.

All at once Frank’s anger overwhelmed him. “Look at you,” he said. “You’re filthy. You’re not a kid anymore. Haven’t I told you to stay out of the sun? You’re getting to be a regular tar baby.”