“There used to be a barn over there, you know,” she says then, nodding toward the back corner of the yard. At night it was indistinguishable in the darkness, but in the right light of day, you can still see a slight discoloration in the grass, a barely perceivable perimeter of where the barn used to be. “The roof on my parents’ barn—where we kept the horses—collapsed a few years ago. Maybe eight or nine. Everything was fine, we went to bed, and then we woke up on Sunday morning and the back half of the barn had just collapsed. Like someone pushed the legs out from under it, you know.”

I nod, but I can’t tell where she is going with this. For all the years I’ve known Graham and the family, no one ever mentions the barn. It seems, actually, like an unwritten rule that it is never to be brought up. It never existed. Not here, not anywhere.

“The horses were fine,” she goes on. “They jumped their corrals and were all standing in the front by the food. Thank God.” She pauses, and I realize it’s for me to agree.

“Thank God,” I murmur. I haven’t said those words out loud in years. Even now, it feels like I didn’t say them. Like I’m watching myself from a few feet away. Like I’m removed from all of it.

“We didn’t know what we were going to do. We couldn’t afford to fix it, we were sure about that. We had shitty insurance, too. They said it was caused by foul play and refused to cover it. Which was ridiculous. We were all asleep. There was no chance. But we couldn’t argue. We were ready to put the horses up for sale. But then, the very next day, Mr. and Mrs. Walker offered to give us their barn. The one that used to sit right over there. I couldn’t believe it.”

I remember the barn clearly. The chipped red paint. The hay floor. The feeling of the slimy wood paneling.

“I didn’t know you could gift someone an entire barn,” she continues. “But the Walkers, they figure out how to do everything. And two days later, they had the old barn removed, they had the site dug up. They even paid for someone to add wash stalls and a feed room and all that. And then the barn was just there. It fit like a glove. Like it had been there all along.” She shook her head and took a deep breath, her hands pressing against each other on her lap. “The horses went from a Motel 8 to a Ritz-Carlton in a week.” She laughs to herself. “You know why they did that?”