Stacy got out after her, smoothing her sweater as she looked across the mowed front yard toward the old apple trees.

Jeff stood by his truck door, scratching his collarbone with one finger as he stared up at the new copper downspouts running from the gutters.

“This isn’t the old Miller place, is it?” Judy asked, walking up the gravel path with her handbag clutched against her coat buttons.

“It is,” I said.

Ron came up the steps three at a time and rested one heavy palm on the corner porch post while he looked up at the straight ridgeline above the attic window.

“Somebody put fifteen hundred dollars’ worth of cedar and lead flashing into this front porch,” Ron said, his booming voice echoing into the front hall.