“Mr. Schramel,” Deck says respectfully, gripping the man’s hand before turning to the woman with mouse-colored hair standing next to him. “Mrs. Schramel.”

Another casserole, I think, noting her acorn-shaped covered Pyrex dish with a matching acorn-patterned towel wrapped around its bottom and handles. But then I catch myself being ungenerous. It’s a reflex, something I do as protection when I’m overwhelmed. Here I am judging these lovely people—Deck’s family and friends—when they’re bringing me food and welcome.

“Mildred,” she says, ducking her fuzzy brown head.

Browline Schramel and Mildred the Mouse.

It’s what I do to organize the chaos of the world: create characters out of the people I meet and turn those characters into stories. But there are too many new faces coming at me. Browline Schramel and Mildred the Mouse step aside, and I find myself in the arms of a police officer, still in uniform.

“Amory Bauer,” he says, “chief of police. And this is my wife, Rue.”

If I were to pick two people in the crowded den less likely to be a couple, it would be Amory and Rue. She’s tiny and birdlike. Her neck twitches, and her eyes behind her glasses dart everywhere. Amory, however, is a mountain of a man, even larger than Clan in girth but not height. He was handsome once, I can tell from the pale blue of his eyes and the silver streaking his ink-black hair. He’s carrying forty extra pounds, though, most of it inner tubing his stomach. His smile, while dashing, has an arrogant tilt.

My mother never liked police officers. Said they couldn’t be trusted, not one of them.

Amory Mountain and Birdie Rue.

“Last but not least,” Ronald says, pushing a wheelchair to the front of the receiving line. (That’s what this is. A receiving line.) The man in the wheelchair is hunched and trembling.

“Pleased to meet you,” I say, hands stiff at my side. Should I crouch so I’m at his eye level? I hate myself for not knowing how to speak to someone in his condition. I dearly hope I’m not making him uncomfortable.

“Did you hear that, Stanley?” A woman appears next to him, patting his hand, gazing at him lovingly before winking at me. “This is Deck’s girl. She says she’s pleased to meet you.”

Stanley doesn’t make a noise, but he drags his rocking head upward for a moment. A bulbous nose shades thin lips. I think I spot a flash of something smart in his rheumy brown eyes, but the light promptly fades.

The woman holds out her hand. “I’m Dorothy. Dorothy Lily.”

Despite being petite, she carries herself in a way that suggests authority. She’s wearing a smart red pantsuit, the flower-shaped, enameled white locket at her neck her only jewelry. I self-consciously straighten my posture. “Joan. So nice of you to drop by.”

“So nice of you to move in,” she says, her smile distant but warm. “It’s been too long since we had young blood on Mill Street.”

Startled, I glance around the room. The guests are snacking on Ritz crackers and deviled eggs brought by I don’t know who, the men drinking beers like they’ve visited here before. I suppose they have. “You all live on Mill Street?”

She nods, and something slips in her face. It’s gone so quickly that I almost believe I imagined it, like Stanley’s flash of intelligence. “Most of our lives. I tell you what, I wouldn’t mind moving south, at least for the winter, but with Stanley’s condition, travel is out of the question.”

Sad Stanley and Saint Dorothy, the Lovely Lilies of Lilydale.

“I’m so sorry,” I murmur, unsure whether it’s the proper response. “Will you excuse me?”

I suddenly, desperately, want to return to the grungy little one-bedroom Minneapolis apartment Deck and I shared for the last six months. Just me, him, and Slow Henry, tucking into eggs and toast in our kitchen nook, watching Sunday television on our drooping couch, making love like we invented it in our tiny bedroom.

Deck, catching my eye across the space, seems to read my mind. He smiles, his dimples lighting up the room.

I paste on a matching grin. I will make the best of this.

For Deck.

For the baby.

CHAPTER 4

“They really all live on Mill Street?”

Deck’s perched on the edge of our bed, which one of our neighbors set up and made for us, sheets, pillowcases, bedspread and all. (Who makes someone else’s bed?) After meeting what seemed like the whole town, I spent the rest of the afternoon in the kitchen, accepting hot dishes and feeling stunned, like a cricket dropped into a beehive.

I’m exhausted to my core.

“My parents, plus the eight who were here right away,” Deck says.

“Some of the people who came later seemed nervous,” I say, remembering the way the non–Mill Streeters seemed to be staring at Ronald for approval. Come to think of it, the whole welcome party was like some sort of royal gathering, with the highborn first and the commoners allowed after.

Deck chuckles. “Probably because you were hosting the most important families in town. The latecomers were ass-kissers. I didn’t know half of them. They just showed up to get in good with my dad and Amory, mark my word.” He pats the open spot next to him. “Come to bed?”

I drop my nightgown over my shoulders. “I have to brush my teeth first.”

“Isn’t it nice, having a bathroom right off the bedroom?”

“I won’t remember all their names.”

The lie gives me a fizz of pleasure.

The people I’ve met today are locked in my treasure chest, their names my rubies and sapphires. And I finally have space to spin their stories. Clan the Brody Bear hibernates in his cave while Catherine the Migrant Mother hunts to feed her starving children. Browline Schramel and Mildred the Mouse live in someone’s cupboard, like the Borrowers. Amory Mountain and Birdie Rue solve crimes. She’s the brains, he’s the brawn. Sad Stanley and Saint Dorothy, the Lovely Lilies of Lilydale, embark on a romantic adventure, one where they realize Stanley really can walk. They simultaneously inherit a million dollars, which they use to open a wheelchair factory for orphans.

Deck sighs. He doesn’t like this game, but he’ll play it. “You know you never forget a name, Joanie. You’re just tired. You’ll recall my mom and dad, of course. Clan and Catherine Brody live next door. Clan’s employed at Dad’s insurance company, where I’ll be working, too. Teddy Schramel with the glasses is an engineer at the phone company. His wife is Mildred. Amory Bauer is the police chief. His wife’s name escapes me at the moment because I guess I’m tired, too.”

Birdie Rue.

“Stanley’s in the wheelchair. That’s new. He’s a direct descendant of the original founders of Lilydale, you know, practically royalty here back in the day. His wife is Dorothy, and that’s it for the Mill Streeters. The others who showed up live in town, but not on this street.”

I duck into the bathroom and then step out, gripping a toothbrush with a pearl of toothpaste gleaming on it. “But the person who owns the newspaper never dropped by?”

“Joanie, you know I would have told you if he did.”

“It’s just that I need a job, Deck. I have to write.” This is true. If I don’t get all the stories I carry in my head out on paper, they turn on me, like an infected sliver just beneath the skin. I’ve been that way for as long as I can remember.