“What’s she doing?” asked Benny, carefully sidestepping the issue.

“Strip-cleaning her pistol,” said Nix, her green eyes meeting Benny’s and then flicking toward the yard outside.

Lilah treated her handgun like it was her first puppy. Chong said that it was cute, but really everyone thought it was kind of sad bordering on creepy.

Benny refilled his teacup, poured in some honey, and watched Nix pick the last scraps of meat from a chicken breast. He even liked the way she scavenged food. He sighed.

Morgie said, “I’m going to catch the first catfish of the season.”

“What are you going to use for bait?” asked Chong.

“Benny’s brain?”

“Too small.”

It was one of their older routines, and Benny made the appropriate inappropriate response. And Tom gave the expected admonition about language.

Even that ritual, as practiced and stale as it had become, felt good to Benny. Especially with Nix sitting beside him. He fished for something to say that would earn him one of her smiles. Nix’s smiles, which had been free and plentiful before her mother’s death, had become as rare as precious jewels. Benny would have gladly given everything he owned to change that, but as Chong once said, “You can’t unring a bell.” At the time-a year ago, when Benny’s wild attempt at driving in a home run had smashed through the front window of Lafferty’s General Store-he had thought the observation was stupid. Now he knew that it was profound.

So much had happened since last year that he wished could be undone, but it was all written into the past and nothing-not wishing or willpower or nightly prayers-could change it.

Nix’s mom was dead.

You can’t unring a bell.

“What are you attempting to think about?” asked Morgie with a suspicious squint.