“Your mother left her casserole dish on the kitchen counter.”

“Keep the dish,” I said from the screen door.

“We have plenty.”

Ron didn’t answer.

He guided Judy down the wooden steps, holding her arm steady as her sensible shoes crunched across the gravel toward their navy Buick.

Kim and Jeff walked back to their cars without another word, their headlights switching on one by one and cutting bright yellow beams through the dark lane toward the blacktop.

Nate stood on the bottom step until the last set of red taillights turned south toward town and disappeared behind the trees.