“That’s what they call comic books now? Everything a child needs to know is in Donald Duck,” Aunt Doris declares. She sounds more like her old strident self.

Adam thinks how the old ladies wanted you endlessly explaining so the truth would always be in motion.

“Sweet Herman loved reading mysteries. He could have been a writer,” Charlotte says, as though Herman is dead and she’s remembering him as a young child.

Elizabeth had always said her strange older cousin was an author of sorts, writing on people with his fists instead of a pen. Adam thinks that for all they know, Herman could be dead, but he knows better than to say this out loud and risk Charlotte collapsing in hysterics.

When Elizabeth was bald from the chemo, they took the girls for a visit to Charlotte’s place in Nolen, Elizabeth’s childhood village. There were family pictures throughout the house. It was built in the early 1970s but Charlotte always referred to it as my lovely modern home. There was a photo on the telephone table of a smiling young teenage Herman holding Elizabeth when she was about five. They had the same dark eyes. Elizabeth adored Herman. His father was Charlotte’s eldest child.

Herman had always wanted to inherit the abandoned old family property up on the mountain, Elizabeth had said. The old ladies wouldn’t give it to him, not until he turned his life around or theirs ended. If he couldn’t get himself on the straight and narrow, as they called it, Herman would just have to wait like a good boy until they died.

The old women continue talking about Herman as they walk, how on the one hand he meant well and on the other hand he was such a misfit. It wasn’t his fault he was born this way; his tramp of a mother drank so much when she was pregnant.

Maybe Aunt Doris was right to be suspicious. And maybe Herman’s not in jail, he thinks. Adam can’t keep track of his incarcerations. “Herman isn’t grateful, that’s the problem,” Aunt Doris says. “If he appreciated even a bit of what people have tried to do for him, if he could just take responsibility, he wouldn’t end up in such trouble. Nowadays young people don’t want to take responsibility for who they are. Or do penance for their failings.”

Another ripple of guilt moves through Adam for doubting Charlotte. He feels like he and Doris are ganging up on a helpless old lady. As the sisters argue, Adam notices how his black leather shoes toss up yellow leaves as he shuffles along.

Charlotte shakes her cane. “No one paid enough attention to poor little Herman,” she barks. “And you never had children, so what do you know?”

“Herman’s bad in his bones, I’ve come to believe. Our family has a bad streak,” Doris says, with the new warble in her voice. “It’s a good thing he’s locked up. We’re too old to try and help him. And your time has passed for making amends, Charlotte. You should have tried to help him when he was a child. It’s too late for regret. You can’t fix everything by remembering someone’s birthday. You can’t unravel the past like you do with your knitting if you miss a stitch.”