After the girls got out of the Jeep, Alexa thought she saw a man she’d never seen in the rearview mirror, driving a black SUV. He wore dark sunglasses. Her heartbeat picked up, and her hands instantly began to sweat and slide across the steering wheel. There didn’t appear to be anyone else in the car. Didn’t gangsters drive black SUVs? Was this car following her to theater camp drop-off?

Then three kids with backpacks and lunch boxes slid out of the back seat, and she realized it was just a carpool dad.

Inhale, exhale. Calm down. The bad men are coming. Inhale, exhale. Calm down. No they aren’t. Yes they are.

Alexa glanced at her phone. It was only 9:40. Alexa had lots of time to kill before work. From Maudslay it was an easy drive up Hoyts Lane and into Turkey Hill, Cam’s neighborhood, and then down his street. Not that she’d see him. What were the odds that he’d be out front at the very minute she was driving by? He was probably at Market Basket, or raising baby chicks in an incubator, or working on a community garden.

As luck would or wouldn’t have it, Cam was in his front yard, practicing his golf swing. Peter used to play some golf and he’d once taught Alexa the three parts of a swing: backswing, impact position, follow-through. She was never interested in going to the driving range with Peter. Now she wished she had.

Alexa slowed the Jeep to a crawl and watched Cam. She didn’t know enough about golf to know if he had a good swing or not, but she admired the way his shoulder and back muscles moved under his shirt.

Then he saw her. He lifted his hand in a wave. His face remained sober. She pulled into the driveway and jumped out of the Jeep.

He was wearing a St. Michael’s visor. He smiled, but she calculated it at only half a smile.

“You look like you’re still mad,” she said.

“I am still mad.”

“About the Griffins?”

Cam said, “Shhhh!” and looked around the neighborhood. Nobody was out except two little kids riding their bikes around the cul-de-sac in furious circles. They looked like they were going to crash into each other, but somehow they never did.

Alexa said, “Cam. Those kids can’t hear you. And if they could, they wouldn’t know what you were talking about.”

Cam laid his golf club down on the grass, gently, like he was putting a baby to bed, and walked toward Alexa. He was frowning. “I know those kids can’t hear me, Alexa, but what if somebody else does?”