You think a judge cares that you flew home for a funeral?

He cares about paperwork and who’s holding it.”

I set the empty bottle on his workbench, in the same ring of dust where it had sat every summer of my childhood, and I left him standing there holding the wrench.

The street was dark when I got back, the porch light off, and the sprinkler ticking away at Helen Vance’s house next door.

I stood on the grass by the gate where the appraiser’s truck had idled.