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“That is one fucked-up story,” Finnegan said. He’d phoned Annie not long after she had emailed him a thank-you for setting

up the house, and listened to the tale of the man from across the road. “Now I feel like I should have found you someplace

different.”

“It’s okay,” Annie said. “I shouldn’t even have brought it up, but it was too strange not to share. I mean, it happened a

long time ago. More than a couple of decades.”

“But still, if I’d had any clue... Candace certainly didn’t mention it.”

“Why would she? Someone had a medical event in the house. How many houses can you think of where something like that hasn’t

happened? That’s life.”

“I guess.”

“I do kind of wish he hadn’t told me. I came up here to get away from sadness, but maybe there’s a lesson there. You can’t

escape it. You have to learn to live with it. For all I know, someone died in our Bank Street place.” She laughed. “Maybe

even Sid Vicious.”

“You’d have wanted to put up a plaque or something.”

“Actually, he died farther up the street, at number sixty-three. How’d you even get onto this house in the first place?”

Finnegan said, “Funniest thing. Someone new down in marketing, there was a meeting, he dropped by, poked his head in the door,

heard I was looking for a spot for you for the summer. He was from up this way, knew about it. I checked it out and it looked

perfect.”

“The studio space is very nice. Skylights and the whole deal. You stocked it well, you manipulative son of a bitch.”

With forced sincerity, he said, “Only trying to help. My intentions were purely honorable.”

“Of course they were.”

Finnegan wrapped things up with, “If you need anything, anything at all, just call. Maybe I’ll surprise you with a visit one

day.”

“Love you, Fin,” she said, and once she was done, shouted, “Charlie! Let’s go!”

When he didn’t answer, she went to the front hall and called up to the second floor for him. When that produced no response,

she went out onto the porch and called for him.

“Where the hell is he?” she said under her breath.

She started to walk down to the road, but before she’d gotten very far she decided to take a look around back. And there,

sure enough, was Charlie, standing on a pile of wood, peering through the grimy window of that shed he’d been so curious about.

“Hey!”

Charlie’s head turned.

“You want a bike or not?”

“One second!” he shouted.

Charlie waited for his mother to round the side of the house, then leaned in close to the window and whispered, “I’ll be back.

I’ll figure this out.”

Annie was again pretty wrapped up in her thoughts once she was behind the wheel and Charlie was belted in in the backseat.

Maybe, she said to herself, this was why John had told her not to go. Because this get-away-from-it-all house had been where

some poor woman’s mind had snapped. But so what? Like Daniel had said, if it hadn’t happened here, it would have happened

someplace else.

“For fuck’s sake, stop it,” she said under her breath, quietly enough that Charlie had not noticed.

John had not told her not to come here. She’d had a dream about John telling her not to come here. Get a grip, lady . She gave her head a shake.

It was about a five-mile drive to Fenelon, which was the closest town that amounted to more than a gas station, a church,

and an antique store. It actually amounted to much more. With a population of about six thousand, it had half a dozen gas stations, a decent commercial strip as you entered

with a Dunkin’ Donuts, a Burger King, a Home Depot, and a Wegmans grocery store. The center of town had more charm, with a

green that ran down the middle of the main street, lots of trees, and a couple dozen small stores and eateries, many of which

chose to use the quaint spelling of “shoppe.” There was the Card Shoppe and the Sandwich Shoppe and the Yarn Shoppe and, of

course, Ye Olde Barber Shoppe.

Daniel had mentioned a place called Jake’s Hardware (and not, refreshingly, Jake’s Hardware Shoppe), where she might find

a bike for Charlie. Annie thought they would make that their first stop, then scout a place for lunch.

“Keep your eye out for this Jake’s place,” Annie said.

As they cruised slowly down the main street heading west, Charlie called out, “Other side!” She made a turn at the next intersection,

came down the east side, and nosed the BMW into an angled parking spot four shops past Jake’s. Once they were out of the car,

their walk to the store took them past a bakery, an antiques store, a card shop, and a shoe repair. Annie glanced into the

antiques store as they passed. She’d spotted a tall, spinning rack of paperbacks in there, the kind supermarkets and drugstores

used to have. Annie recalled the rack at her neighborhood Rite Aid when she was growing up, how it squeaked when she turned

it.

A jingling bell over the door announced their arrival at Jake’s. There were aisles of paint and tools and gardening gear and plumbing and electrical supplies and just about anything else someone might need for their household, but there were no bikes in sight.

A man in his early thirties, wearing a red shirt with jake’s on the pocket, was working the till. “Sorry,” he said when Annie asked if they carried bikes. “We usually bring in a few

in the spring, but we’re all sold out now. I doubt any place in town’s got any. You might want to take a run to Binghamton.”

“Is that far?” Charlie asked.

“About an hour,” the clerk said. “Or check online, see if anybody’s got anything in stock before you go.”

Annie took a crestfallen Charlie out to the sidewalk. “Sorry, sport. I’ll do some checking when we get back to the house.

Hungry?”

He was. They decided to take a chance on the Bagel Shoppe, with that special spelling, expecting the worst. But the chocolate

chip bagel Charlie wolfed down and the poppy seed with chive cream cheese Annie ordered proved borderline satisfactory.

On the way back to the car, passing the antiques store, Annie said, “Let’s check this out.”

“Do we have to?”

“You never know what you might find. Maybe some more old Ray Bradbury paperbacks.”

Charlie offered a sigh of surrender and in they went, setting off another jingling bell. Annie quickly realized this was less

an antiques store and more a hoarder’s paradise. Old furniture, Sears catalogues from the 1970s, books, broken lamps, old

model train buildings and other accessories, printers that hadn’t been hooked up to a computer in twenty years, Beanie Babies

that looked like they’d been gnawed by dogs, boxed jigsaw puzzles that Annie was willing to bet were missing several vital

pieces.

Charlie wandered off toward the back of the store, while Annie had a glance at the paperback books, thinking that even if she found one that interested her, odds were it would not be mold-free.

“Look ’round long as you like!” said a voice. Seconds later, a heavyset woman with gray hair and wire-framed glasses emerged

from between two aisles of junk. “We got just about everything you could ever want.”

Provided your list consists of nothing but shit , Annie thought. “Thanks. Just thought we’d browse.”

“Got some classic Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle figures back there somewhere your boy might like. So long as he’s not fussy

about them having all their limbs.”

Annie gave her a polite nod. For all she knew, there were great treasures to be found, but nothing was organized. Royal Doulton

figurines were on a shelf with toy guns. Old copper pipe was in a box with wool mittens. A Cuisinart base with mixing bowl

sat on a shelf next to an ancient Howdy Doody doll. The only reason to stay another couple of minutes was out of politeness.

Once she’d rounded up Charlie, they’d be out of here, but he had vanished into the bowels of the shop.

She worked her way down an aisle and called out softly, “Charlie?”

She kept on going until she had reached the back end of the store, which was where she found her son, examining a bicycle.

“What about this?” he asked when he saw his mother standing there.

“That?” she said, unable to hide her lack of enthusiasm.

The bike was about the right size for a boy Charlie’s age, but it was definitely from another era. The seat was one of those elongated banana seats, with the handlebars raised upward, like angel wings. The wheels and frame had rust spots, and the back tire looked flat. The bicycle was probably from the sixties or early seventies. And if all that weren’t enough, it was a girl’s bike, the center bars slanted down.

“It’s perfect,” Charlie said, swinging his leg over the seat, holding on to the handlebars and testing it out.

“The back tire’s flat. Charlie, it’s a piece of junk.”

“Oh, it’s still good,” said the proprietor, who had materialized out of nowhere. “I got a pump to put some air into that back

tire. It might look rough, but it works. I had a kid trying it out the other day. I know it’s made for a girl, but, you know,

these days we try not to judge, right?”

“Mom?” Charlie said pleadingly.

“Honey, we can go to Binghamton and find you one, or order it, like the man at the hardware store said.”

“That could take forever . It might not even show up before we have to go home. And I need it right now .”

“And why do you need it right now ?”

“I got places to go,” Charlie said.

“And people to see,” said the store owner, laughing. “I can make you a good deal on it.”

Annie thought, if anything, the woman should pay her to take it off her hands. “I really don’t think it’s the right one for

him. He’s never had a bike before, and it would probably need training wheels, and—”

“ Mom! I don’t need training wheels. I’m not a baby. I already know how to ride a bike.”

“Since when?”

“I ride Pedro’s all the time.” Charlie’s friend from school. “But in the alley, never on the street,” he said, anticipating

his mother’s alarm.

“Ten bucks,” said the shop owner.

“Pardon?” Annie said.

“I can let it go for ten.”

“I don’t think so,” Annie said.

“I have it,” Charlie said, digging into his front pocket.

He brought out a five, three ones, and some change. He was counting it out aloud, moving the funds from one hand to the other

as he did so. “, seven, eight, twenty cents, thirty cents—”

“What you got there is just fine,” the woman said, holding out her hand. Charlie put his money into her palm, Annie watching,

shaking her head.

Okay , she thought, maybe this will be a lesson learned . A fool and his money are soon parted, her own mother used to say. When Charlie got this bike home and it fell apart before

he reached the end of the driveway, he’d listen to his mother the next time she advised him against a purchase.

“A pleasure doing business with you,” the woman said. “Let me get a pump for that tire.”

Moments later she was back, hooking a hose to the nozzle on the back tire. “Why don’t you do it,” she suggested to Charlie.

After she demonstrated how to use the device, he forced some air into the tire, then felt it between thumb and forefinger.

“Seems hard,” he said.

“Tell ya what. I’ll throw in the pump. If it gets soft again, you can pump it up at home.”

Charlie beamed. As he wheeled it out of the store and toward the car, he asked if they could go back to the hardware store

and get some special cleaner so he could get the rust off the rims.

“Why the hell not?” Annie said.

Once they were back at their temporary home, Charlie spent the rest of the afternoon with a rag and a tin of Brasso with the

intention of making the bike look, if not brand-new, perhaps newer.

“When you’re done cleaning it up, you call me before you start pedaling all over the place on it,” Annie said. “There’s some ground rules to go over.”

“Like what?”

“Call me. Understood?”

“Understood,” he said wearily.

While he worked on his bike, Annie went up to the second-floor studio. She stood just inside the doorway for a moment, sizing

the place up. It appeared recently painted, judging by how free of marks the walls were, and the fresh coat of white made

the room look bigger than it was. In the ceiling were two skylights that filled the space with sunshine. There wasn’t a shadow

anywhere except for under the chair and worktable Finnegan had arranged for.

She walked over to the chair, ran her hand along the back of it. Almost inexorably, she found herself sitting in it, giving

it a little bounce, taking it for a test drive.

Nicer than her studio chair in the city, Annie thought.

She surveyed the items at the edge of the table. A large coffee can filled with markers and pencils and brushes. In another

can, a rainbow’s worth of tubes of paint. Plus, several large pads of art paper. Even some bricks of plasticine in a variety

of colors, all wrapped in clear plastic.

Annie tore off a sheet of paper and secured the four corners to the table surface with short strips of masking tape.

A blank page.

She’d been good friends with an artist from The New Yorker , now passed on, whom she often met for lunch at Café Luxembourg up on West 70th Street near 10th Avenue. He was something of a fixture there, sitting in the corner, sipping on a scotch, always at the same table, where he had a view of the various neighborhood celebs who might wander in. He had said something to her once that had always stayed with her. “I never had a drawing that was as good on paper as it had been in my head.”

Boy, did she get that. She could imagine so clearly what she wanted to create, but what traveled down from her brain, through

her arms, and out her fingers onto the paper so rarely lived up to expectations. But then, that was the challenge, wasn’t

it? If it was easy, what would be the point? If anybody could do it, everybody would do it.

She knew this happened even more with novelists, and was something of a running joke among them, but she was often asked where

her ideas came from. Like there was a store someplace, an Ideas R Us, where you could buy them by the dozen. She always just

smiled and said she didn’t know, that an idea would just pop into her head and she’d run with it.

The truth was, she did know, but was at pains to explain it. She’d tried more than once with John.

“Imagine an image on a pane of glass that’s flipping slowly through the air,” she’d told him. “Sometimes you can see it straight

on, but other times, if you’re looking at the glass from the edge, it’s just a line, the image vanishes.”

John had listened intently, trying to picture it.

“So, I’ll see that line first, like it’s slicing through the air, coming out of nowhere, a sliver almost, and then it starts

to turn, and the image comes into focus. That’s where I first saw Pierce. On that pane of glass.”

“Cool,” he’d said.

What she didn’t tell him was that she’d been seeing those panes of glass slice their way into her world since she was a child,

and they didn’t always come through the air. Once, she saw one come right out of a person, like that time when she was eight,

walking through Penn Station, holding on to her father’s hand.

Annie caught sight of a tall, ordinary-looking man in a tan trench coat coming her way. Suddenly she had a vision of glass emerging from his head, hairline to chin, edgewise. The glass pivoted, becoming a mini-window through which she saw his face.

It had changed.

He was no longer ordinary. His features were covered with fur, his ears were pointed, and he’d grown a snout with a jaw filled

with sharp teeth. His fierce eyes fixed on her for a fraction of a second.

And he smiled.

The glass flipped and vanished and the man was back to normal. As he passed, Annie turned and watched him walk away and be

swallowed into the crowd.

Annie never said a word to her father.

So here she was now, waiting for that creative spark. Ideas didn’t always have to come out of thin air, on a piece of glass.

Sometimes you had to sweat them out.

She picked up a pencil, touched it to the paper, and started to sketch out the shape of a penguin.

She got as far as drawing Pierce’s head, and then stopped.

“No,” she said to herself. “Not yet.”

Pierce had become that old friend you’d lost touch with and didn’t have the nerve to pick up the phone and call. Maybe someday,

but not now. She needed to try something else, be open to new ideas. Annie took a breath and allowed her mind to empty. Nothing

happened right away, but she chided herself for being impatient. Tried to think of a cloudless blue sky.

After about a minute, her right hand began to move.

She deliberately looked away, casting her eyes up to the skylight, while her fingers sketched. It reminded her of when she

and her childhood friends would rest the tips of their fingers on a planchette as it wandered a Ouija board.

After a couple of minutes, she lifted her pencil from the paper and looked down to see what she had done in her almost trance-like state.

“Oh my God,” she said.

When Annie stepped out onto the porch, she expected to find Charlie, still working on his bicycle. But he wasn’t there, and

neither was the bike.

And then he suddenly appeared, rounding the house from the right, racing past the porch, legs pumping furiously, before disappearing

around the left corner. A few seconds later, he reappeared, again from the right. He was doing laps.

“Charlie!” Annie shouted.

But Charlie was oblivious to her cries and kept on going. One thing was clear. He had been right when he’d said he didn’t

need training wheels. He was handling the bike like a pro. Before he came around for a third pass, she descended the porch

steps and positioned herself in what she expected to be his path. Sure enough, he came around again, saw her standing there,

and cranked the pedals backward, engaging the brake. The bike skidded to stop two feet in front of Annie.

“Hi, Mom,” he said, panting. There was sweat on his forehead, and his shirt was sticking to his chest.

“You were supposed to wait for me before you tried it out.”

Charlie shrugged. “How’s it look?”

She had to hand it to him. The chrome wheels and spokes that had been so rusty and grimy sparkled. There were still places

on the frame where the paint was chipped or cancered with rust, but for a bike that had to be decades old, it wasn’t bad.

And if it bothered Charlie that it was a girl’s bike, he showed no sign.

“I’m impressed.”

“I used all the Brasso,” he said.

“Not surprised.”

“I’ve been riding around and around the house. I’ve already done it twenty-two times.”

“You getting ready for the Tour de France?”

“The what?’

“You’re a sweaty mess.”

“I’m building up my enema.”

Annie stifled a laugh. “Stamina.”

“Yeah, that.”

“And why do you have to build up your stamina?”

Charlie hesitated. “Just in case I ever had to ride somewhere far one day.”