The years folded into one another the way happy years tend to, without clear seams, so that when I look back on our childhood it is less a sequence of events than a single warm impression: Gemma, and Gabriel, and me, and the long gold afternoons.

Gabriel rode his bicycle to our house nearly every single day after school.

The specific rattle of his tires over the gravel of our driveway was, for years, the sound that meant the good part of the day was starting.

Gemma would be waiting at the front window before he ever came into view, having somehow sensed him coming, and the moment she spotted him she would announce it to the whole house with the joy of a herald announcing a king.

My parents did not share her enthusiasm.