“It’s kind of you,” Terrance said.

“Hardly,” Nina said. “It’s business.”

The sound of running and jumping explained itself then, too, as her son, Mark, jumped down from a tree. Leaves fell with him, like rain.

“Say hello, Mark,” Nina said.

“Hi,” Mark said. He shook his shaggy hair out of his eyes and gave a little wave to Terrance, which was sweet, as if he could see that Terrance was a kindred spirit. Then he ran on, scrambling up another tree.

“Did you spend the holiday with relatives?” Ted said.

“Yes,” Nina said. “My son.”

He’d never felt sorry for Nina before, but he did now, a little. Two people was small for a Thanksgiving gathering. They’d be eating leftover turkey till July. He nearly suggested she join them next year, but he caught himself just in time.

“It’s a little hard to sell houses when the town looks like the outside of a polling station,” she said.

“No one buys this time of year anyway, right?”

“Not this year, they won’t.”

“Not long till the hearing,” Ted said.

Nina harrumphed. She rolled down a walkway toward the Chatterjees’ house, and Ted and Terrance continued down the street.

Terrance was the one who spotted the maple lying on the Lamberts’ lawn as if it were sunbathing. He shined the flashlight on it, making the shadows deep on the grass. This tree was a little bigger than the usual, a few years older, its trunk and limbs a little thicker. Cox seemed to be upping his game. “This is a big tree. Why would someone . . . ?”

“They can plant another one. Right?” Terrance’s voice reflected the upset he’d heard in Ted’s. “Trees grow. Right?”

“Of course, but. Well, yes. You’re right. Trees grow.”

“Trees grow. That’s the thing about trees. So it’s not so bad, Ted.”

“I guess . . .”

“That’s the thing about trees,” Terrance repeated, self-soothing. “People don’t grow back, but trees do.”

“That’s right,” Ted said. When their parents died Terrance had had hopes of resurrection. “Time to go off-road.”

They cut into the woods, down along the creek, where it was easy to destroy trees undetected. Everything looked all right down here tonight, the only fallen trees ones Ted had already taken note of. They were headed in the direction of the old tire swing, where kids used to spend summer days back when Ted and Terrance were boys. Ted took a path away from the water, and Terrance followed.

Shame was strange. It didn’t wear off over time the way other emotions did. Hate calmed down with time, and passionate love did, too, both of them settling into something softer, something easier to bear. But shame . . . All he had to do was think of that day and he felt it roaring right back up through him, steaming through his chest and settling in his head, where it stayed, throbbing.