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Molly said.
    “Hi! What are you doing in this dumpy old town? I thought you went to Alaska.”
    “I did, for a while. Then I moved to California.”
    “Sunny California. I wish I could go there.” A strong wind blew down the street, rattling the bare branches of the trees.
    Christine looked into her stroller. Molly followed her gaze, as she knew she was meant to. “Hey, cute. A girl, right?”
    “Yeah. I ended up marrying Billy Foreman. You remember him, don’t you?”
    Christine had to be kidding. Everyone remembered Billy Foreman. He had been the most popular boy in school, tall and blond, a football quarterback who had his own sports car.
    “Sure,” Molly said. “Congratulations. What’s he doing now?”
    “Joined his dad’s business. We closed on a house two weeks ago, up in Oak Knolls.” Oak Knolls was the most expensive area in town. “Just another month and we’ll be out of this dump. What brings you here? Visiting your aunt?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Does she still have that spooky old black car?” Christine asked, though from where she stood she could no doubt see the car in the garage. “And that weird housekeeper? What was her name—Lily, something like that? Do you remember the Halloween when Billy and I soaped the car windows?”
    “I didn’t know that was you, actually.”
    “Oh, come on. It was all anyone talked about the next day.”
    “No one said anything to me.”
    “Don’t tell me you’re still mad. It was just a joke.”
    “A joke is ‘Two guys walk into a bar.’ What you did was vandalism.”
    “Oh, come on. You always were so serious about things. What are you doing these days?”
    “Me? I’m a private investigator out in California.”
    Christine narrowed her eyes; for the first time Molly thought the other woman envied her. It was as good an exit line as any. “Gotta go. See you later.”
    “Yeah,” Christine said, a little subdued. “ ’Bye.”
    Molly continued down the sidewalk. The streets seemed smaller than she remembered, the houses shabbier. Naked oak trees, their branches ending in knobs like skulls or fists, lined the sidewalk, their roots buckling the pavement.
    Without thinking about it she headed toward the high school. Even it looked less impressive, the paint peeling, the grass in front giving way to patches of weeds. A sign on the fence warned away drug dealers. Molly felt a little shocked to see it, though the drugs had been there in her day.
    She looked through the fence, remembering how intense everything had felt back then, how certain she had been about things. Now the place seemed insignificant, a stopping point on the way to the rest of her life. She grinned, thinking of the conversation she had had with Christine. Christine was no doubt unused to envy.
    By the time she returned to Fentrice’s house the bridge group was leaving. “Good-bye,” one of the sisters said. “So nice to see you, Molly,” said the other.
    Estelle’s head jerked upward in surprise. “Molly!” she said. “I didn’t recognize you. Look how you’ve grown!”
    The rest of the visit went quickly, and a few days later Fentrice and Lila took Molly to the airport. Once on the plane Molly stared out the window, wondering why she had ever moved to the West Coast, why she felt compelled to change her address, her job, her life, every few years. The midwestern winters, of course, but there was more to it than that.
    “What is the answer?” Gertrude Stein had asked on her deathbed, and then, receiving no answer, had said, “Well, then, what is the question?” Molly had heard that about Stein, an Oakland native, since moving to Oakland. At least you learn things when you move around a lot , she thought. Useless trivia, most of it, but it keeps you going .
    She took out the family tree she and her aunt had drawn and studied it. All those names she had never known—Verey and Edwina, Neesa and Harry. She whistled softly. Harry. Lord Harrison Sanderson, Master of the Order of