Their father had been an accountant for the IRS, their mother a housewife. Ordinary people could afford Willard Park then—teachers, government workers, hippies. That was the kind of people Ted still wanted to live among. Normal people, who did for themselves and for others instead of hiring everything out to strangers. People who believed in community. Soon the neighborhood would be all power brokers who pulled into their garages at night and drove off again in the morning. It would become a bedroom community as economically homogenous as it had been ethnically homogenous in the 1950s.

Lucy’s family had been the first black family to move to Willard Park in 1959, before Ted was born. They bought the old Willard farmhouse and turned it into a café, naming it after their little daughter, who would later turn it from an ordinary sandwich place into an institution. The town had welcomed the family at a time when many Washington-area communities were still restricted, and diversity increased at a steady pace. These days Willard Park was a mixture of colors and nationalities, religions and sexual orientations. That made Ted feel proud.

“What’s wrong, Teddy?”

“Nothing, Terr. I’m good.” Ted spread out two paper napkins on the coffee table and handed Terrance a soda.

“Only you can prevent forest fires, Ted.” Terrance pointed at him.

Ted pointed back. He studied his brother’s mild, sweet face. Terrance was balder than Ted and a good thirty pounds heavier. He was like a distortion of Ted, what he would have been like if there had been complications at his own birth.

“I went on a date last night.” Terrance put his hand up for a high five.

His hand was warm. “With whom?”

“A girl. She’s from Free to Be Me.” Free to Be Me was Terrance’s social group. It met once a month for pizza or bowling.

“Good for you, pal.”

Terrance closed his eyes. “Bay City Rollers,” he said.

The nursing home wasn’t a bad place to work. There were pots of flowers and a shaded patio. The people were kind, for the most part. And yet, Ted felt guilty. He was the son who had it all: a comfortable job, a wife and daughter, and the family home. Terrance lived in a group home with three other disabled men and spent his days cleaning up after old people. He’d worked there for twenty years—longer than Ted had ever done anything.

Routine worked for Terrance, Ted reminded himself. Terrance had practically had to be medicated after Coke changed its recipe in the 1980s, and he’d gotten so worked up when Giant closed its in-store bakery that the manager called security to remove him from the store. Ted had to walk him over to the bakery next door for a couple of mornings, until he got used to buying his morning muffin there every day instead.