“No,” he said, flapping self-consciously. “I wouldn’t know how.”

“You’ve flown as a housefly before.”

“That’s different. I don’t go high or far at all. I wouldn’t know how to fly with wings this big.”

“You won’t know until you try, man.”

“Can I help you at the pawnshop sometime? I’ve never had a job. It sounds kind of awful and kind of fun.”

“It’s exactly both,” she said. “Tell you what. If you can fly higher than the roof, I’ll let you do a shift with me tomorrow.”

Josh grinned nervously, but first he turned to Diane, who was watching the conversation unfold with something less than enthusiasm.

“Is it okay, Mom?”

“It’s okay, Josh,” she said, not sure if it was okay. She hid her anxiety behind smiling eyes.

I’ll always be a mother, she thought, but I’ll always be a lot of things. I wonder what the next of those things will be?

Josh looked back at Jackie, who nodded and gave him a thumbs-up with her empty left hand, and then he looked up at the sky. His wings worked and his body slowly lifted off the grass.

“Please try not to hit any windows, dear,” said Lucinda from her lawn chair.

“Just be careful please,” said Diane.

Josh banked around experimentally. He was a little lower than the rooftop. Diane watched him, one hand over her eyes, one over her heart.

“Watch your head,” she said, but to remind him of something he already knew, not to tell him something he didn’t.

Jackie gave him another thumbs-up, and he returned it to her. He tried a loop, and managed a wavering somersault instead.

Troy watched all this, sitting in his car just outside the house. He had both hands on the wheel and he was smiling. It was definitely a smile. He had been sitting there for a couple minutes trying to make a decision. As he watched Josh, he thought about what Jackie had said about helpfulness, and what Diane had said about his role in their lives, and he made a decision.