“Don’t say you’re old, Daddy.” She nestled next to him on the side Rex wasn’t occupying, resting her head on his arm.

The clock ticked its way into the next day as they stared at the changing images, their skin flickering blue, the specter of Ted Miller fading like a miasma into the night sky.

4

SEPTEMBER 30

The new family was moving into a Carlin model Sears home circa 1918, a sweet two-bedroom bungalow with a porch and a second-floor balcony. Allison, at her desk in her attic office, studied the catalog page on her computer. In the drawing, the house—which originally sold for $1,172—was perfection itself, with two hanging plants on the porch and well-tended flowers lining the curving path. Now, a hundred years later, it admittedly needed some work, but it was still a precious little home.

Their own house, built in 1910, was so old that Sears hadn’t even started naming the models yet. It was similarly small, tiny even, for a family of three, with just two bedrooms. A previous owner had turned the attic into a somewhat usable space, but there was still barely room for her desk and a futon; it was too cold in winter and too hot in summer. But Allison didn’t mind. A sense of home and community: that was what mattered—not whether you had a second bathroom. She and Ted were in agreement about that.

Allison printed a copy of the Carlin catalog page. She planned to take it to the new family this morning along with a write-up of the history of Willard Park and a loaf of Lucy’s banana bread—a little welcome kit. She started humming “You Can’t Get a Man with a Gun,” one of the few Annie Get Your Gun numbers they could choreograph without a leading man. Valeria’s husband, Phil, usually played the male lead, with Valeria as the leading lady, but with the two of them living in Paris, the town theater company threatened to fall apart. The director, Rainier, who had moved to Willard Park from Austria a few years ago, talked about hiring an actor to play Frank. Allison laughed the first time he mentioned the idea, but it was starting to seem like the best option. Allison had to wonder why she was even doing the show this year.

She opened the little window above her desk and looked down on Ted, sitting in the yard beside the forlorn little maple with his bagel and coffee. There was little hope for the maple’s survival according to the tree guy, but Ted still sat beside it the way he had sat at Terrance’s bedside when Terrance had pneumonia that time.

She called down to him, “Hey.”

Ted lifted his hand in a halfhearted wave.