Mr. Geddoes said even common toads, if they are sick, turn brown and secrete a mild poison which tastes very bitter and acts in a peculiar way on the human heart.

Summer came. The chaise didn’t absorb my sweat. It got slippery. I shoved it to the edge of the room, into the wedge between the sloped ceiling and the floor, and pulled the bed into the middle of the room. I lay on it in the heat. I read and looked straight up through the skylight. At night I served coffee in the strobe-lighted cave where long-haired musicians met pudgy high school girls wearing color-coordinated skirts and sweaters. They would have preferred orange soda pop. So would I.

Rennel worked with autistic children at a county clinic. He puttered by on his motorcycle whenever he could get somebody to watch him. He drove out to Sam’s every few days.

Sam’s ten-dollar car had broken down and wasn’t worth fixing. Except when someone else drove out to see them, he and Carlotta stayed out there in the trees with the goat and Angelina. Sam went to a few of his speed-reading classes and came by my place afterward. He was excited about it and showed me how to move your fingers across the page in some special way to help you soft-focus your eyes. I kept threatening to test him. When the car broke down he stopped going to classes and didn’t try to get his money back.

On the Fourth of July, Rennel stopped at my place on his way out to Sam’s. He hadn’t been there in a week, but he said they were probably all right. Some rich girl was using the cabin and she had a car. I was sick of my skylight and ready for a party, so I went along.

There were four cars on the grass around the house. The day was fine and the music screamed from the open windows. I hadn’t seen Carlotta in a while. She stood wedged in the kitchen doorway as we came up. The red dress was tight on her belly now, and hung down shorter over her legs. Her long arms and legs poked out like candy apple sticks. She was the most pregnant woman I’d ever seen. She was alone in the kitchen and stood aside to let Rennel get by. She smiled a little to herself and leaned into a chair.

“It’s pretty big, isn’t it?” She stroked the top of her belly, her eyes half-closed.

“Is it twins?”

Her belly jumped and a protrusion developed, then disappeared.

“I think that’s his foot.”

“Have you been to a doctor?”

“No. We still phone when we go in to shop. But none of them will come to the house.”

The music careened around the little house. Voices sang in the living room, out of tune.