Page 6

There was some settling in to do.

Despite being told that the kitchen was well stocked, Annie had brought a few things, including Charlie’s favorite cereal,

the chocolate chip cookies he liked, a dozen authentic New York bagels that she put into the freezer to get them through the

first week until she found something nearby that might fill the void. She got her clothes and Charlie’s unpacked and put away

in their respective bedrooms and set up their toiletry items. There was a bathroom attached to the larger bedroom, which Annie

took, and a smaller one in the hall that would be for Charlie.

It was late afternoon by the time she had all that done. She was going to propose heading into nearby Fenelon, the closest

town, to see what it had to offer, but an exploratory trip like that could go on indefinitely and turn into a dinner out,

and they’d already had a fast-food feast at lunch, so Annie decided that could wait a day. Whoever’d stocked the place to

Finnegan’s specifications had loaded the freezer with several prepared entrées. Annie found a meat lasagna in there, and a

bag of salad in the fridge that would serve nicely for a first meal in their new digs.

Charlie, having given up trying to find his favorite channels on the living room TV, had resumed his exploration of the property. He checked out the books in his room, which included several Dog Man and Wimpy Kid adventures. While they would have been perfect for any other kid his age, Charlie had already moved on to what was known in the business as middle grade and young adult books. Few, if any, pictures, and multi-chaptered. His teachers had said his reading skills were well ahead of any of the other kids in his class. The room had also been stocked with an assortment of plastic dinosaurs, several toy cars and trucks, and a couple of Lego sets, still in the original packaging. There was an Arctic explorer ship and a car wash that was part of the City series.

Nice.

As much as he was tempted to rip both boxes open now, he decided to wait. Maybe tomorrow, or maybe some rainy day.

He wandered into the room that the previous residents had used for a studio, all set up if his mother wanted to get back to

work. He hoped she would. She seemed happier when she was working. He was tired of her being sad. He was tired of being sad

himself.

Charlie found a door that led to the basement. He brushed away some cobwebs as he descended a set of wooden open-backed steps.

They led to an unfinished room with cinder-block walls and a beam ceiling that allowed a view of the underside of the floor

above. There was a furnace, a hot water tank, a circuit breaker box, and lots of tubes and ducts and wires going here and

there and everywhere, and up against one wall, an empty pegboard and a big wooden table that probably served as a workbench

at one time. There were four shallow drawers built into the table, and Charlie inspected each of them. One was empty, a second

contained a few sheets of glossy paper with black-and-white pictures of people on it, and the last two were filled with odd

screws and nails and pipe clamps and other junk.

Curiosity satisfied, Charlie decided to head back upstairs and go outside.

The outside was so big .

Not Central Park big. That was, as its name kind of suggested, a park . It was supposed to be big. It was supposed to have lots of trees and shrubs and rocks and stuff. You could run flat-out

for ages and not run into anything if you watched where you were going. You could fly a kite in the park. You could play Frisbee

in a park. But this was a private yard that went with the house. You didn’t have to share it with other people. Charlie had

heard his mother say it was four acres of property, and a lot of that was just woods. Charlie didn’t know what an acre was,

but he figured it had to be huge.

Charlie was right to have raised the issue of getting a bike. He needed a bike here. If he had wheels he could ride it around and around the house and down to the road and back again.

There was one item of interest in the backyard.

It was a small building tucked almost out of sight behind a couple of trees, about ten-by-ten-feet in size, with a wide door

at one end and a small window on the left and right sides. It would, Charlie thought, make a neat fort. A place just for him.

He could read comics back here, play video games, set up a table and chair and build his Lego sets. It could be like his own

office. If his mom could have her own studio, shouldn’t he have a place, too, to do what he wanted to do? Of course, much

would depend on what was in there to begin with and if he could make some space for himself.

He wasn’t going to find out by opening the door. It was secured with a padlock, which he pulled in the unlikely event it hadn’t been snapped into place, but it held firm. He went around to a side window, where a pile of firewood leaned against the shed, for a peek inside. Climbing on top of the woodpile, he used his hand as a visor and put his nose up to the glass to peer inside. There was stuff in there, that was for sure, although the glass was so dirty—on both sides—that it was hard to make anything out very clearly. He thought he saw a wheelbarrow, maybe a lawn mower, some lawn chairs that had been folded up, and several boxes.

He hopped off the woodpile, tried the lock once again without success, then wandered off into the trees. He was hoping he

might see a bear, or a fox, or maybe even a kangaroo, although he had heard those lived in Austria or someplace like that.

The lasagna and salad hit the spot. Annie also found two cartons of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream—Salted Caramel Almond and Chocolate

Chip Cookie Dough.

“I gotta hand it to Fin,” she said as they ate their dessert. “He did think of everything.”

“What’s in the backyard?” Charlie asked.

“I don’t know. Trees and stuff. I haven’t been out there.”

“There’s a little building. It could be a fort.”

“Probably a garden shed. Did you look inside?”

“It’s locked.”

“Then I guess we’re not meant to go in there.”

Charlie looked disappointed. “I was going to make it my headquarters.”

“I see. Military, or have you set up a corporation?”

“What?”

They watched some TV after dinner, but not for long. Annie found herself ready to pack it in at half-past eight, which was

Charlie’s normal bedtime.

“I’m done like dinner, pal,” she said, hitting the off button on the remote.

They both got ready for bed, Annie promising to come in and see him before he turned out his light. About a year earlier, Charlie had announced he was too old to have a bedtime story, but since his father’s death, he’d offered no protest when his mother offered to sit on the edge of his bed and read to him.

He was under the covers and had a selection in his hand when Annie came in. Rather than sit on the edge, she got right on

the bed. “Scootch over,” she said, settling in, her back on the headboard. Charlie handed her the book, an old, weathered

paperback, yellowed along the edges.

“What’s this?” Annie asked. It certainly wasn’t one of the books Finnegan had arranged to have put on the shelf in Charlie’s

room.

“It’s one of Dad’s,” he said. “I grabbed it from home.” The book was The Golden Apples of the Sun by Ray Bradbury.

“Your dad loved Bradbury. He’d had this book since he was a kid. It’s a collection of short stories.”

Charlie nodded, suggesting he already knew. “Dad read me some.”

“He did?”

How did she not know this? A range of emotions washed over her. Sadness, guilt, regret. Had she been letting Charlie down,

not exposing him to more of his father’s interests?

“Can you read me ‘The Destrian’?” he asked.

“The what?” She started thumbing through the book, looking for the story. “You mean ‘The Pedestrian’?”

“Yeah,” Charlie said.

She read aloud the classic story about a man who draws the attention of the authorities because he prefers to take an evening

walk over staying home and watching television, which is what everyone else does. She asked Charlie why he liked it.

He had to think. “I don’t know. Because it’s weird?”

“I think it was one of your father’s favorites because it was about a man who didn’t want to follow the crowd.”

“What crowd?”

“He didn’t want to do what everyone else was doing. He wanted to do his own thing. Your dad was like that. His parents weren’t

crazy about him becoming an artist, an animator. All the kids he knew got so-called normal jobs when they grew up, like accountants

or car salesmen or plumbers, and those are all good jobs because we need all those people doing what they do, but when you

say you want to be an artist or a writer or a singer, parents get worried you won’t be able to make enough money to survive.”

“You make lots of money.”

Annie smiled. “I do okay. But it wasn’t always like that. I’m just saying your dad didn’t let other people, even his parents,

stop him from pursuing his dream. Let me put it another way. Pretend every kid you know hates Lego. There’s a new law that

you’re not even allowed to build Lego. What would you do?”

Charlie thought about that. “I would still want to play with Lego.”

“There you go. You’d stick with it because it’s what you love. And that’s what your father did, becoming an animator when

others weren’t so sure it was a good idea.”

Charlie nodded, getting it. “So no matter what I want to be when I grow up that would be okay?”

Annie felt herself about to be tested. What was he going to come up with? Rodeo clown? An astronaut? God forbid he said politician.

“Probably. What do you want to be?”

“I just want to always be your son and stay with you when I’m old.”

Annie gave Charlie’s shoulders a squeeze and managed to hold it together until she got back to her room.

She’d packed several books—she was saving the Patchett and instead was diving into a Stephen King novel from thirty years ago called Needful Things she’d always meant to get to—and soon found her eyes drifting closed. But once she settled under the covers and flicked off

the light, she couldn’t get to sleep.

There were no noises.

No sirens, no honking horns, no boisterous people walking along the Bank Street sidewalk, whooping it up. No distant sounds

of jets coming into or leaving La Guardia or JFK. How the hell was someone supposed to get to sleep when it was this quiet?

But sometime after midnight, she finally drifted off.

And Evan came to her.

“Evan, come back inside. We’re ten floors up. If you step off that ledge you’ll be very badly hurt. Your mom and dad won’t be pleased. They’ll be angry. With you, and with me.”

“It’s okay. I told you. I can fly.”

“Six-year-old boys can’t fly. You don’t have feathers. You don’t have wings.”

“Yes, I do. I made them.”

“Those are cardboard, Evan. Held on with tape. They won’t keep you up.”

“Pierce Penguin can fly. And penguins aren’t supposed to be able to fly.”

“He’s pretend .”

“Pierce Penguin says you can do anything you put your mind to. Mom reads the book to me all the time.”

“Evan, what Pierce’s saying is, be the best little boy you can be, but it doesn’t mean you can turn into a bird and fly or

be a fish and live underwater or be a squirrel and climb trees.”

“You’re wrong. I can fly.”

“Evan, just take my hand and come back—”

“Here I go!”

Annie woke with a start, sitting bolt-upright in bed, holding her hand to her chest. Her heart was pounding. She waited for the beats to slow down, then swung her feet to the floor and stood.

She had been prescribed Xanax after Evan’s death, and had gone back on it after John’s. She’d weaned herself off it, but had

brought along the few pills she had left, just in case. She went into the bathroom, looked through the travel kit of various

medications she had packed back in Manhattan, and found the plastic bottle. She gave it a shake. Only four pills left. She’d

left in such a hurry that she hadn’t thought to have the prescription renewed before coming here, but supposed that could

be accomplished one way or another.

She uncapped the bottle and tapped one pill into her palm and was about to toss it into her mouth when she heard something.

A whistle.

A whistle and a low rumbling sound.

A train.

She recalled crossing a set of tracks only a mile before reaching the house. Was it a passenger train? A freight? It went

on for more than a minute, so she was guessing a freight. A passenger train would undoubtedly have been shorter.

It was, in a strange way, comforting. She was almost tempted to run into Charlie’s room and wake him so he could hear it for

himself, but before she could decide whether to disturb him, the sound receded.

She looked at the pill in her hand, let it fall back into the bottle, and replaced the cap.

Annie went back to bed.

The leasing agent, who evidently also sold properties, came by just before noon. Her name was Candace Grove, she drove a black

Lincoln Aviator, and was dressed smartly enough to suggest she made an annual pilgrimage to New York to raid Bloomingdale’s.

“Wanted to make sure you’d settled in okay,” she said when Annie answered the knock at the door, Charlie tagging along with

her.

“Everything’s great,” Annie said. “If it was you who got this place ready, hats off to you.”

Candace gave her a quick once-over. Annie knew the look. You’re a bestselling author and the best you can do is a ratty sweater, jeans, and would it kill you to slap on some lipstick

or slip on some earrings?

But the critical look vanished as quickly as it had appeared. Candace said, “Can’t do enough for my daughter Stacy’s favorite

writer.”

“Well, that’s very nice to hear.”

Candace said, “I don’t mean to brag, and I know all parents think their little darlings are geniuses, but our Stacy is a pretty

talented artist herself for a five-year-old.”

“Is that so.”

“She likes to draw kittens, mostly, although sometimes she draws other things. Would it be... I hate to ask... but do

you think I could bring them by sometime, show them to you? You could tell me whether you think she really has a talent and

if we should be considering some special art programs for her.”

Annie felt a part of her die inside, but was careful not to let on how she felt. It was wearing, these hopeful parents who

wanted you to tell them their kid was the next Charles Schulz or Ian Falconer, when in reality their work would never be displayed

anywhere but on the fridge.

“Sure.”

“Or, if it wasn’t too much trouble, you could show her where you do your work.”

“I’m not set up here for that,” Annie said.

“Oh. Mr. Sproule wanted the studio all readied, so I assumed—”

“His expectations may be a little high.”

Charlie, who’d been holding back behind his mother, stepped out and asked, “What’s in the building in the backyard?”

Candace hadn’t taken much notice of him until now. “Who’s this young man?”

“This is Charlie. My son.”

“There’s a big lock on the door and I can’t get in,” he said. “I need it for an office.”

Candace laughed. “I hope it’s not a real estate office. I don’t want any competition.”

Charlie, thinking that adults said some of the dumbest things, did not have an answer for that. Candace said, “It’s probably

just a shed with garden tools and a lawn mower, but you don’t have to worry about that because there’s a landscaping service

that comes around every week.”

“Do you have the key?” Charlie asked.

“I’m afraid not,” Candace said. She turned her attention back to Annie. “So, if and when you set up your workspace, maybe

I could come by with—”

“Uh-oh,” Annie said, touching the front pocket of her jeans, as though a muted phone had started vibrating on her upper thigh.

She pulled out her cell, glanced at the blank screen, and said with feigned sincerity, “I’m so sorry, I really have to take

this.” She pretended to swipe the screen, put the phone to her ear, and said, “Hey, hi. With you in a second.”

She flashed Candace an apologetic smile. “Thanks so much for everything,” she whispered. “I’ll call if I need anything.”

Candace waggled her fingers and headed for her Lincoln as Annie and Charlie walked back into the house. Once inside, with

the door closed, Annie lowered the phone.

Charlie said, “You didn’t get a call.”

She put a finger to her lips. “That’ll be our secret.”

He went to the window next to the front door to watch the Lincoln drive back down to the road. “Somebody else is coming,” he said.

Annie took a look for herself.

An old man was glancing in both directions as he ventured across the road. He was coming from the house where the woman had

rebuffed Annie the day before. Late seventies, maybe early eighties. Tall, thin, a few wisps of perfectly combed silver hair.

Glasses. He was dressed in a black T-shirt and jeans that, even from this distance, appeared to have a crease in them. He

gave a nod to Candace as she reached the end of the driveway and took off.

In one hand, the necks held between his fingers, were two bottles of beer. In the other, one beer.

Annie went back out onto the porch, descended the three steps, and stood near her car as the man closed the distance between

them.

“Good day,” he said, raising the bottles in his right hand. “Hope I didn’t catch you at a bad time. I brought three. Wasn’t

sure whether it was you and your husband or just you.”

“Me and my boy,” Annie said, and realized that Charlie was on the porch. “That’s Charlie.”

The man nodded. “Good to meet you, Charlie.” He grimaced and waved the bottles in the air. “I’d’ve brought a Mountain Dew

or somethin’ had I known. Don’t think your mom’s gonna let you have one of these.” Then he eyed Annie. “And for all I know,

you don’t care for beer. I’m always assuming, and we all know what assume means. I’d say it if young Charlie wasn’t standing there.”

Annie smiled. “I’m Annie Blunt.”

She took the one beer from him and then extended a hand. She felt the cold droplets of beer sweat on his palm.

“I’m Daniel. Daniel Patten. And the beers here is a peace offering.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I know my wife gave you the cold shoulder yesterday. Not very neighborly and I wanted to try to patch things up.”

“It was nothing,” Annie said, and then motioning up the steps, said, “Why don’t you come in.”

It took him a moment to climb them. “My knees aren’t what they once were,” he said. When Annie held open the front door for

him, he didn’t move and looked dubious about crossing the threshold.

“Why don’t we just sit out here?” he suggested. “Shame not to enjoy the lovely weather.”

“Sure.” She waved a hand toward the wicker chairs.

Daniel delicately set himself into one and Annie dropped into the other. She twisted the cap off the cold bottle in her hand

and took a swig.

“So you do like a beer,” Daniel said, grinning, exposing a couple of brown teeth.

“I do indeed,” she said. “And it’s hot enough out to appreciate one.”

“A local brewery. About ten miles from here.”

“Charlie, why don’t you find something to do while I chat with Mr. Patten here.”

“Daniel,” he said. “You can call me Daniel, young man.”

Charlie didn’t look offended in the slightest to be dismissed, but he had a question for Annie before departing. “Can we look

for a bike later?”

“We’ll talk about that.”

“You could try Jake’s Hardware in town. They sometimes have bikes,” Daniel said.

“We’ll talk,” Annie said again. Charlie got the message, and vanished.

Daniel said, “Dolores—that’s my missus—isn’t much for socializing. She came in, looked a titch flustered, and then I looked

out and saw that you folks had moved in.”

Flustered? Annie didn’t see why saying hello would unsettle anyone. Had she given off some kind of New York vibe that rubbed this man’s wife the wrong way? If so, she couldn’t imagine what it was.

Daniel said, “She’s really more of a homebody. Likes to keep to herself. Doesn’t mean any offense by it. Just the way she

is, the way she’s been for some time now. And she moves even slower than me some days and doesn’t like to cross the road.

So, what brings you here? You moving in?” He chuckled to himself. “Dumb question.”

Annie explained it was probably only for the summer. “It’s been... kind of a stressful year and I wanted a break from the

city for Charlie and myself. We live in Lower Manhattan. The West Village, if you know it.”

“Can’t say that I do. Never been to the Big Apple.”

It always amazed Annie that there were people who had never been to New York City, but then, wasn’t that just what a self-absorbed

New Yorker would think?

“So,” Daniel said cautiously, “it’s just you and your boy.”

“My husband passed,” she said.

His face fell in genuine sympathy. He had his own beer open and took a drink, wiped this mouth with the back of his hand.

“That’s a shame. I’m so sorry. So, recently, then.”

“Yes.”

“He’d been sick?”

Annie slowly shook her head. “No,” she said simply.

They were both quiet for a moment. Finally, Daniel asked, “What sort of work did he do?”

“He was an animator. You know, like cartoons.” She guessed what he was thinking. Her husband was the provider. He wasn’t going to ask what she did, because she was a woman and was content to run a household. She thought about telling him what she did, then decided she didn’t need to make a point with this man. He seemed nice enough.

“Cartoons?” he said, and nodded. His expression grew wistful. “Our grandson loves cartoons.” Daniel had another pull on his

beer. “Although we don’t see him too much. And he’s in his teens now, anyway.” There was a sadness in his eyes.

“So you obviously have grown children.”

“Two. Son and a daughter. Son lives in Milwaukee. Him and his wife don’t have kids. Daughter’s in New Haven, mostly raising

her boy alone. She got divorced a while back and her husband’s not on the scene much.”

“That’s too bad.”

“Oh well, what can you do? You bring them into the world, you raise them, then send them off on their own. Just wish they

visited more. Offered to look after Thatcher—that’s our grandson—a few times over the years so his mother could get away,

but she’s not been inclined to take us up on it.”

So there was something going on there, Annie felt, but she didn’t guess what, and wasn’t sure she even wanted to know.

Another few seconds of silence. Finally, Daniel said, “You might have noticed I didn’t really want to step inside.”

She had, but didn’t say anything.

“Dolores and me, we’ve lived in that house since 1961. That’s...” and he paused, doing the math in his head, “...sixty-three

years. Built that house with my father when I was eighteen. He was a carpenter, built houses all around these parts. And I

worked with him since the time I was twelve. When I was seventeen, I met this girl.”

He smiled, and a web of creases spread out from both eyes. He gave her a sly look. “We were young and kind of stupid, and I guess if we’d both known more we wouldn’t have got into the situation we did. Dolores kinda got pregnant.” He grinned at his choice of words. “I guess there’s no ‘kinda.’ You either are or you aren’t.”

Annie smiled. “That’s been my experience.”

“So the pressure was on that we get married, and while Dolores’s folks were ready to disown her, my mom and dad were more

what you’d call supportive. Dad said we need to build you a house, and he bought that parcel of land over there.” He pointed

a long, bony finger at his place. “Your place was here. It’d been here a long time. Not fixed up nice the way it is now, updated

and all. That fellow that lived here and his wife—they were both photographers of some sort—did some upgrades, but I think

I’m wandering off topic here.”

“Take your time.”

“Me and Dolores got married right away and lived at my folks, and by the time she was ready to have the baby the house was

done. Moved in, been here ever since.” He suddenly looked proud, his chest swelling. “That’s our house and it always will

be.”

But just as quickly his eyes seemed to mist over. He gazed out over the yard, not really focusing on anything.

“Dolores’d mostly been what you might call a stay-at-home mom, but she’d always been one to take the odd job here and there.

For some time there, she baked out of the home and they sold her cakes and pastries at a place in Fenelon. She liked that.

When our kids were in high school she got work at the IGA, cashier mostly. And she’d do housecleaning for folks. She wasn’t

proud. When the folks that lived here asked if she’d do that for them, I said, hey, do you really want to clean house for

your neighbors? And she said, what are you talking about? You think they’re better than us? A dollar’s a dollar. I didn’t

have any argument for that. So that’s what she did. Cleaned over here once a week for about three months before it happened.”

Annie tensed, feeling that he was working up to something, but said nothing.

“I was home. Happened to look out the window, see Mrs. Anderson running over here fast as she can. I meet her on the porch

and she’s saying come quick, something’s not right with Dolores. So I go running after her. I was younger then, in better

shape—this was more than twenty years ago, what I’m telling you about—and was able to keep up with her, and even before I

got to the house I could hear the screaming. Never heard a sound like that come out of my Dolores.”

Just tell me what happened.

“I get in the house, and she’s just standing there at the base of the stairs. Rigid, like she’s at attention. Arms at her

side, and she’s got her mouth open and she’s wailing. I’m standing right in front of her, sayin’ her name, saying, ‘Dolores,

it’s me, it’s Daniel,’ and it’s like she’s looking right through me, like I’m not even there. They called an ambulance, and

the paramedics, they gave her something to calm her down and took her to the hospital, and the doctors, they say it was whatcha

call some kind of a psychotic break and a bunch of other mumbo-jumbo, but the bottom line is I don’t think they know what

the hell happened.”

Annie said nothing.

Daniel sighed. “A switch got flipped, and one moment she was fine and the next everything in her head went kablooey.” He shook

his head slowly. “Like there’d been this little time bomb in her noggin waiting to go off for years, and it just decided to

do it while she was over here vacuuming and dusting. Like a heart attack, you know, but in her head, but not a stroke or one

of those TIAs, either? If it hadn’t happened there, I guess it would have happened someplace else. One doctor said, it was

like if you opened a door and someone jumped out to surprise you. Like if that moment of shock never went away.”

Annie thought about that. “Like if something scared her?”

Daniel shrugged. “Like if something maybe scared her in her mind . If that makes any sense. Anyway, because Dolores associates this place, and anyone living here, with her, whatever you call

it, condition, she keeps her distance.”

“Of course.” Delicately, Annie asked, “How long did it take for her to recover?”

Daniel chuckled darkly. “Love to let you know when that day comes.”

“All this time?”

“Well, it’s not like she’s been screaming for twenty years. It’s more like a part of her got turned off. She takes her meds,

and she doesn’t talk much, and she watches The Price Is Right every day, and she likes to sit on the porch with a book that she won’t read, and I don’t really know how much of her is

really there, but sometimes life throws you a curveball and you have to deal with it. I love my Dolores, and that’s all she

wrote.”

He managed a grin. “So, welcome to the neighborhood,” he said, and laughed.

Annie forced herself to smile. “Thank you.”

“Do I know how to spoil the mood, or what? I’m laying all this on you, and that’s just not right.”

“No, it’s okay. Really.”

“I get talking and there’s no stopping me.”

“Really, I don’t mind. So,” she said slowly, trying to make conversation, “the people who lived here before were photographers.”

“Yup.”

“What kind of photography?”

Daniel screwed up his face. “Not sure, exactly. Think they did different kinds of things, whatever paid the bills. Weddings,

nature stuff. Did a couple of picture books of the Hudson Valley, the Finger Lakes.”

“Where’d they move to?”

Daniel slowly shook his head. “Don’t know. They didn’t even tell me they were moving. One day they were just gone. Didn’t

even pack up their own stuff. Moving truck came a few weeks after they left, cleared the place out without them even being

there.”

Annie had become curious. “When was this?”

“, six years ago. They never did sell the place. Well, they did, but they sold it to the real estate people, and they’ve

been renting it out off and on since then. Been some seasons it just sits empty, which is a shame, nice house like that. But

they’ve kept it up good. That woman who was just visiting you? She looks after it.”

“I wonder why they left. The photographers.”

A shrug. “People get restless. But not me. Built that house. Not leaving.”

Annie smiled. Daniel was starting to grow on her. They were both quiet a moment. Daniel broke the silence. “I imagine, coming

here from the big city, it’s a tad quieter.”

She managed a weak chuckle. “I could hardly get to sleep last night without all the sirens and garbage trucks and what have

you. You get used to all that background noise, and can’t manage without it. I’ll have to get a white noise app for my phone

or something.”

Daniel looked puzzled, but didn’t ask for an explanation.

Annie said, “I did love hearing the train, though.”

“Train?”

“Woke me up, can’t remember when, exactly. But it was... I don’t know how to describe it. It was a comfort .”

“You had to have heard something else,” he said.

“Oh, I know what a train sounds like,” she said. “Must have been on those tracks, just up that way.” She pointed.

“Yeah, that would be the old A&B. The Albany & Bennington. Small railroad, went out of business some time ago. Nothing’s run on those tracks for several years now. Have a look, you’ll see the top of the rails are rusted. You got a train running on it, it keeps the rail tops shiny. There’s been talk of pulling them up altogether and making it a hiking trail, given that it’s fallen into disuse. You must’ve heard a truck.”

Annie considered that. “Maybe so,” she said quietly. It wasn’t worth an argument. She knew what she’d heard. She might be

from the city, but she wasn’t an idiot.

“I best be off,” he said, slowly rising from the chair. “It’s been nice talking with you.”

“A pleasure,” she said, offering a hand. She stayed on the porch and watched until he had crossed the road and gone back into

his own house.