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When they got onto an interstate heading south back to New York, Charlie stirred and broke the silence. He had a question he’d been wanting to ask his mother for some time.

“Mom,” he said tentatively.

“Yeah?”

“When we get home, and everything kind of settles down...”

“Yes?”

“Could you get me a decent bike?”

She looked at him in the mirror and smiled. “No,” she said.

Charlie didn’t think it was worth arguing about. At least not now. Maybe after a couple of weeks. There’d be plenty of time to work on her then.

Daniel thought he smelled smoke.

He had dozed off, sitting in his chair in the living room. The whiff of something burning drifted up his nostrils and woke him. He got up, walked out the front door, and stared in wonder at the house across the street.

There were flames coming out the skylights on the roof. Just above the studio, he was thinking. The fire spread quickly, blowing out windows on the second floor, flames billowing out.

Daniel was wondering whether he should put in a call to the fire department, then decided against it. Something told him he should let it burn.

Within minutes, the entire structure was fully engulfed.

Daniel sensed someone coming up behind him, and when he looked down, there were Dolores’s hands, fingers laced together across his belly. He felt her head press up against his back.

He shifted around, put his arms around her, and his lips met hers as she tilted her head up to him.

“I love you,” he told her.

She smiled. “I’m back.”

They went inside, arm in arm, as the house across the street burned to the ground. They couldn’t say for certain, but they thought they heard a dying whistle.