Maybe he would drop the umbrella, walk away with long strides, and not even glance back at the girl with the ladybug canvas at her feet.

The meadow was farther than Turner remembered. In the growing night he was also different than I remembered, also more distant, a little less defined.

Billy was a boy who had liked my sister the summer she graduated from high school. He took her to eat ice cream and see movies about dolphins which she described as “fascinating.” Katy stopped caring about things after she got into college. She passed that summer with a restless, undirected passion, teetering on the…