Ted felt a bubbling within, a simmer that threatened to boil. “You need to sit down, Terr,” he whispered, again a little too close to the mic. Someone yelled, “Let him talk!”

Ted scanned the room for the heckler, giving Terrance his chance. He grabbed the mic and breathed on it, filling the room with Darth Vader–like breath. “Hi.”

Ted tried to pull the mic from him—the timer was blinking yellow now—but Terrance held on fast, grinning, as if they were playing a game.

Ted felt reason take wing. Fury, the furies, flew into his head, and seeped out, through his eyes, through his ears. Go home, he wanted to say. Go home, retard.

No sooner had the words formed in his head than he released his grasp on the mic and took a giant step back.

“Hi,” Terrance said again, louder.

“Hi,” some of the audience members called back.

Ted moved to the other side of the lectern. He was sweating. What was wrong with him? Was he losing his mind?

Terrance clicked the button on the projector, and no slide came up, just the bright yellow light from the bulb; then he clicked again and a slide of Ted and Terrance appeared: they were rolling down Willard Hill in summer, hair cut into crew cuts.

“We used to roll so much we got dizzy!” he said. He clicked to the next screen, a shot of the houses on their street. “We used to go to your house and you gave us cookies.” Terrance pointed at Adela Lambert. “And we shoveled your snow when you were sick that time.” He nodded to Martin Thorp, who was in negotiations with a developer.

The light turned red, but Terrance went on, holding tight to the mic while the mayor “eh-hemmed” a couple of times, then grabbed for it repeatedly, without success.

“You were my teacher and you helped me. And you,” he pointed at Jeff Tyler, the hardware store manager. “You teased me.”

Jeff smiled, uncomfortably.

“I don’t remember a lot of things. Dana gets mad at me about that. But I remember my mom and my dad and my brother and my home. I always remember my home.” He presented the microphone to the mayor and saluted. He gave Ted a hug, then he stepped off the stage and walked down the center aisle, toward the back door, just as Cox had done.

People stood, clapping. Some were even wiping their eyes, Nina Strauss among them.

Ted clapped so hard his hands hurt, tears in his own eyes. “Ladies and gentlemen: my brother.”

“LOOK AT THIS UNDERWEAR!” IT WAS BIG AND SAGGY, THE KIND OF thing an old granny would wear. Lindy waved it overhead like a flag.

Pregnancy underwear? How awful. Jillian snatched it out of Lindy’s hands. What if Grant and Suzanne came home now? Raiding the kitchen was one thing, but snooping through Suzanne’s bureau? “Please stop.”