Not that trees were his only obsession. He was obsessed about the moratorium hearing too. He’d collected more than enough signatures, a personal victory. He worked on his testimony in bed at night, often reading it aloud to Allison, whose job it was to make sure it didn’t go over three minutes. He seemed to think his nightly changes were radical, but Allison usually couldn’t tell the difference between one version and the next. She’d be able to recite it from memory by the time the hearing rolled around next week. He was even making a slide show to accompany it, not a PowerPoint, but with actual old Kodak slides.

Jillian nodded her head up and down like a bobblehead on a car dashboard. It was a wonder she could concentrate on what she was writing, her head was moving so much.

“How can you concentrate on your schoolwork with music playing?” she said, but Jillian didn’t hear her.

Ted put on his glasses, which he only wore when he was tired. They made him look older. They’d been a couple for more than half their lives. No wonder their sex life had died. Life was changing, evolving, for better or for worse. Soon they’d be old. Jillian would have to take care of them before long. She was glad she and Jillian were so close. Or were they close? She couldn’t remember the last time they had had more than a two-sentence conversation.

“What are you listening to, Jill?” she said, wondering, literally, what was going on in her daughter’s head.

Jillian sang aloud. “What?” she said, when she caught Allison looking at her. She pulled out an earbud, looking cross.

“You were singing.”

“I was not!” she yelled.

“I’m going to take a walk,” Allison said in her best faux-chipper voice. “Join me?”

“Math sucks,” Jillian said.

Allison weighed her options. If she ignored the bad language, it might encourage Jillian to open up to her. But in the end, Allison couldn’t resist suggesting an alternative. “Math stinks,” she said.

Jillian rolled her eyes and stopped up her ears again.

“Candy could use a walk,” Ted said.

“Not tonight.” Allison had the right to go alone. Ted never took Candy on his nightly walks. He came home with mud on his shoes. He claimed just to be taking inventory of damaged trees and property, but Allison suspected he had visions of catching Nick in the act, and turning him in, vigilante-style. It reminded her of when Jillian and Sofia used to wander the neighborhood in raincoats and sunglasses, pretending to be spies.

And, too, you couldn’t take photos when you had a dog along. That was what Allison was going to do tonight. She grabbed her coat, camera, and tripod and walked into the glow of the night.