By quarter to seven, I was speeding down Rogue's Road—muggers had waylaid naïve travelers here in Colonial days—and hauled by a sprawling copse of oaks. Garm Castle, the top of its yellow brick parapets towering into view, sat couched further back among the oaks.

Garm, a homesick Scotsman, had erected the castle in the late 1890s and then sent for his new bride. They lived in the manor over a happy interval, but then Mrs. Garm contracted tetanus from pricking her finger on a rose thorn and died childless.

They said Garm went insane and followed her to an early grave.

The disused castle became Pelham's most exotic landmark, and its imperceptible driveway offered our teenagers a lover's lane. I'd parked on it.

I recalled when proud Sears homes and shady maples had flanked our town streets. Blondes wearing hot pants and flawless tans lounged on porch gliders, sipping on colas through bent paper straws. Cannas bloomed red as claret above the wrought iron fences, and the swept sidewalks sat even. But Pelham had turned shabby at the edges, and so had I. Here a few months shy of the new millennium, I'd fallen short of the brass ring. This truck and the leaky doublewide represented my sole wealth.

I passed a road sign advertising a new housing tract and frowned. Like I said, Pelham had turned shabby.

Eight minutes early, I docked across the way from Rennie's apartment building, my truck engine idling to run the heater. The old Shepherd place squatted on the desolate end of Main Street. The out-of-town landlord had diced up the Victorian two-story into four cubbyhole apartments. The Shepherd's oldest boy, Whit, had played star shortstop (a scholarship to Arizona State waited in his future) next to my serviceable third base.

My disaffection with Pelham started when Whit ran his VW off the rain-slick pavement into a telephone pole, died of his injuries, and his parents sold the house. I never saw the Shepherds again, but they were better off—bailing from Pelham offered a shot at redemption.

Not long afterwards, I'd also left to serve in the Army MPs. MP work wasn't sexy, but it was satisfying enough to take pride in doing well. After graduating from Military Police School, my beat was Fort Riley. I patrolled its gates and streets, writing up tickets (even for the brass) and arbitrating domestic disputes. Something of a barracks rat, I read a ton of pulp paperbacks. Prisoner escort duty sent me on trips throughout the mainland to fetch AWOLs back to face court martial. Most were scared kids, not much different from me.

The main rub was the lack of RnR and I burned out. Three years and three stripes later, I ejected from the MP Corps, vowing I'd never do police or criminal investigative work again. Instead, I returned home when I should've learned better. Lonely, I'd next tried marrying and then divorced the two-timing Marty. I curbed that unpleasant memory.

No lights blazed in the ground windows to the apartments rented by the old widows. The bright upstairs window had to be Rennie's bedroom. I could picture her at the mirror dabbing on perfume before debating, then leaving her top blouse buttons undone. I grinned at my wishful thinking.

The truck cab had grown stuffy. I cut off the heater, slid out, and heaved the tool chest into the bed. The unscrewed gun rack went under the seat. The half-empty pint (I'd had no drinks all afternoon) fit in the glove compartment.

Whistling, I tuned in to WKQK, the last old-time bluegrass radio station in Virginia. Vintage Jim & Jesse, Reno & Smiley, Flatt & Scruggs, and Mac Wiseman wailed those mountain ballads pinching your heart in a forceps of woe and misery. Were they that far off the beam?

The night of my parents' fatal auto smashup had brought a young deputy sheriff knocking on my aunt's door. A few years older than me, Cody was off at summer camp. Sending a uniform to give a notification of death, I later learned, is standard police procedure. I hopped out of bed and beat her to answering the door.

The deputy sheriff had slouched in a yellow slicker on the stoop. The torrent drowned out his words until my aunt in her robe invited him into the foyer. He smelled of motor oil and dripped rainwater from his yellow slicker to pool on her terrazzo tiles. Stammered words spelled out the tragic reason for his visit—

A cant of my head saw the upstairs window blacking out. Rennie came skipping downstairs and through the door. Wearing no scarf or hat left her pretty face distinguishable. She'd dressed in a parka over a short, plaid skirt and black hose. Only she wasn't alone.

Turning, she peered down. Two small children trailed her.

"For Christ's sake, can you believe this?" I muttered.

Rennie tugged down the stocking caps over their ears. Their breaths created miniature haloes in the frosty air. The longhaired, little girl pointed at the glitter of stars. With a nod, Rennie glanced up. She clutched their small hands in hers and led their parade to the streetside Prizm. They piled inside it. The tailpipe smoked and the taillights reddened. I saw her take off and turn at the next block.

She'd scoot back in a few minutes—"seven o'clock, no earlier please". Did I take off like that fool of a fox on the run?

Maybe. Cody's sly omission of Rennie's kids angered me, but I'd had a stomachful of moping. I cuffed off the radio, ranged out, and paced across Main Street to the apartment building's porch.

Waiting, I fished out the cigarette I'd bummed off Cody and lit it.

I exhaled the smoke, looking up at Orion the Hunter poised in our town's night dome and marveling how a mother of two could stay so damn trim.