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over his shoulder to find Ella frowning, her head down, as if mortified by his driving.
    He eased the clutch up. Branches plucked the spokes, thumped against the roof, then let go with a swish and a sprinkle of leaves.
    â€œAll clear?” he called.
    â€œAll clear,” his mother said, and he turned off the car.
    â€œAll right,” Lise said for the benefit of the kids, “everyone help bring stuff in.”
    They set after the task in a squad, Lise doling out the bags, glad to have something to do, leaving him the job of saying hello to his mother.
    She came toward him, smiling, and from habit he bent down and wrapped his arms about her bony shoulders. He could not say she looked good, since each time he saw her now her scrawniness shockedhim. Instead, he gave her a quick hug and asked, too sincerely, “How are you?”
    â€œA little overwhelmed but hanging in there. How about you?”
    â€œThe same.”
    It was not a lie. There would be a right time to tell her about the job.
    â€œI’m so glad Lisa could come.”
    â€œShe wouldn’t have missed it,” he said, and realized how false it sounded. “The paint looks good.”
    â€œOf course. Now that we’ve sold the place, it looks great.”
    Lise came by with the flowers in one hand and a duffel in the other, his camera bag over her shoulder. His mother accepted the bouquet, protesting, just touching one arm, as if tagging her back. “I’m so glad you could make it.”
    â€œDon’t be silly, Emily,” she said, and headed for the door.
    Sam struggled out of a hug from Grandma, while Ella, acting grown up, lingered over hers, consoling his mother, patting her back. They were both all long bones, and their glasses nearly matched. While he and Lise always commented on how much of his mother was in Ella—the moodiness, the love of books—in person the resemblance was almost comical, two sisters separated by sixty years.
    Arlene gave him a lipsticked kiss on the cheek, smelling of cigarettes. She leaned in close, conspiratorial.
    â€œI don’t know if your mother told you, but we’re shooting for a moratorium on video games this year.”
    â€œLise already read them the riot act.”
    â€œHow’d they take it?”
    â€œElla was fine with it, as you’d expect. Sam, well …”
    â€œI don’t think it’ll be a problem, as long as it doesn’t rain.”
    â€œWhat’s the weather supposed to be like?” he asked, but no one knew.
    They said hello to Rufus too, Ella kneeling beside him, enveloping him in a hug. He lay in the shade of the chestnut as they unloaded their tennis rackets and sleeping bags, Sam’s backpack full of
Star Wars
Legos and Pokémon cards, Ella’s crammed with bottles of nail polish and library books. Merck had occasionally sent Ken to their plant in Baltimore, and he’d learned how to fit a week into one carry-on. At some point hischildren would have to learn to make choices, to sacrifice. He feared, in the future, some crippling repercussions from these early indulgences, and thought that was due to his own childhood being for the most part idyllic, the hard facts of life reaching him only in his mid-twenties, as if until then he’d been swathed in a cocoon of his parents’ making, composed of equal parts love and money.
    Bringing the bags through the living room, he wanted to stop to look at the familiar sailing pictures on the walls, the ugly orange shag rug, the mobile of Spanish galleons that poked you in the eye. It was like entering a party full of good friends, and the memories each piece of furniture, each object on the mantelpiece stirred up as he passed orbited like overheard conversations. He would have time later, he thought, and envisioned documenting it all with the Holga.
    He lugged the bags upstairs where they would be sleeping, in the one long room under the peak of the roof. This