Henry Eden came out on the porch. His dog walked behind him.

‘Get that mutt inside, or I’m gonna turn right around and go home,’ Laura said from the foot of the stairs.

‘He can’t help passing gas, Laura.’

‘That doesn’t mean I have to be around when he lets rip,’ Laura said. ‘I mean it, now, Henry.  My head hurts like a bastard, and the last thing I need this morning is listening to that dog play Hail Columbia out of its asshole.’

‘Go inside, Toby,’ Henry said, holding the door open. Toby looked up at him with wet eyes, as if to say Do I have to? Things were just getting interesting out here.

‘Go on, now,’ Henry said.

Toby walked back inside, and Henry shut the door. Laura waited until she heard the latch snick shut, and then she mounted the steps.

‘Your sign fell over,’ she said, handing him the carton of empties.

‘I got eyes, woman,’ Henry said. He was not in the best temper this morning, himself. Few people in Willow would be. Sleeping through a rain of toads was a goddam hard piece of work.

Thank God it only came once every seven years, or a man would be apt to go shit out of his mind.

‘You should have taken it in,’ she said.

Henry muttered something she didn’t quite catch.

‘What was that?’

‘I said we should have tried harder,’ Henry said defiantly. ‘They was a nice young couple. We should have tried harder.’

She felt a touch of compassion for the old man in spite of her thudding head, and laid a hand on his arm. ‘It’s the ritual,’ she said.

‘Well, sometimes I just feel like saying frig the ritual!’

‘Henry!’ She drew her hand back, shocked in spite of herself.

But he wasn’t getting any younger, she reminded herself. The wheels were getting a little rusty upstairs, no doubt.

‘I don’t care,’ he said stubbornly. ‘They seemed like a real nice young couple. You said so, too, and don’t try to say you didn’t.’