Wyatt grounded the Land Cruiser on the holes and rocks in the road. Later he found that he'd destroyed the exhaust system. Henry tried to resuscitate Thomas in the back of the car. At the clinic the doctor used the paddles, but the only result was burn marks on Thomas' chest. The doctor stopped.

"[It's hopeless,]" he said in Spanish.

Henry pressed his forehead to his father's. The doctor and Wyatt left the room.

Wyatt was sitting on the bench in front of the clinic when Henry emerged. Wyatt draped an arm over his friend's shoulders. "How are we going to tell the women?"

Henry shook his head.

A man rode by on horseback. You didn't see that often, Wyatt thought. Not like the childhood Ada recalled, when vehicles were the exception.

"He was a good man," Wyatt said.

Henry nodded.

"You want some more time?"

"No," Henry said. "That wouldn't help."

Ada and Maria and the children were in the kitchen. "Didn't you see us?" she asked. "You were driving awfully fast. You almost hit us."

Henry and Wyatt looked at each other.

"What is it?" she asked. "What happened?"

Henry walked out.

"Henry!" Ada called.

"Let him go," Wyatt said. "Sit down, Maria. Something happened."

Wyatt had expected Maria to fall apart, but she didn't. "I am have two husbands die," she said. "Second time is easier."

They buried him next to Nora. On the drive home Wyatt asked Ada, "Now can we go home?"

"Yes. There's no reason to stay."

In the morning they told Maria they were going home. "I go with you," she said.

"[Are you sure?]" Ada asked. "[You've never been anywhere. It will seem very strange.]"

"Yes. You have two childs. Henry has one."

Henry bought Wyatt's car. He and Dawn and their daughter would move into the big house. They agreed that Ada and her family could use Henry's other house when they visited.

They waited a month for Maria's passport and visa, then drove both cars down to San Jose.

Maria was afraid of the aircraft. She stepped on the gangway gingerly, as if on a tightrope. She nearly bolted when the engine began to whine. She sat in an aisle seat and refused to look out the window. She acted as if the flight were a form of magic it would be wisest to ignore -- don't look at it, and it wouldn't fail.

"[Where are we going?]" Clover asked her, in Spanish.

"[Didn't your mama tell you?]" Maria said.

"[She said we're going home.]"

"[Yes.]"

"[But home is your house.]"

"[We have a new home,]" Maria said. "[Home is wherever we all live together.]"

"[But we live in your house.]"

"[Not now. Papa Wyatt has a house. We will live there.]"

"[I want to sit by the window,]" Clover said. She was in the aisle seat across from Maria.

Ada gestured. "Come here. Sit in my lap." When her daughter was settled she said. "Now you're going to fly. You've never flown, not since you were little."

"Like Gabriel?"

"Not quite that little. See that plane?" A jet was landing. "We'll go up, and after a while we'll come down, like that one's doing. Tomorrow we'll be at our new house."

"New like Gabriel?"

"Actually, it's very old. But it's new to you. You've never seen it."

"Did you ever see it?"

"Once."

"Can I have my own room?"

"Yes. You can choose a room."

The plane taxied to the runway. "When I was a girl, I took a plane from here to there, the same place we're going now."

Clover settled against her mother, at an angle to look out the window. Ada embraced her. Then they were in the air. Ada pointed. "See the houses? Those are their roofs."

"Mama!" she cried. "Can we live in an airplane?"

"Wouldn't you miss playing outside, and taking walks?"

"Then can we buy an airplane?"

"We don't have that much money. Besides, it would be terribly wasteful."

After the meal Maria found the courage, or the curiosity, to sit by the window. The baby woke, and cried, and Ada held him. He looked at her with his face squeezed. Children in airplanes, she thought. Nothing but work and trouble. Still, it was better than driving for weeks, through violence and turmoil, as Wyatt secretly yearned to do. She'd seen the maps, with the jotted notes on times and distances, and the stopping places marked. She was grateful he hadn't asked, or driven back alone. She was grateful, too, that he had enough money to bring his family home this way, above the troubles: revolution in Nicaragua, kidnapping in El Salvador.

There was difficulty getting Maria into the country, in spite of her visa. A man and a woman questioned the adults in separate rooms. They let Ada keep the baby with her. Clover was with Maria.

"No," Ada said, in answer to a question. "She's not a blood relation. She's my stepmother. She has a valid visa."

"Why didn't your father come with her?"

"He died last month."

"Do you have a death certificate?"

"No. I didn't know I'd need one."

"The man with you. What's his relationship?"

"He's my husband."

"You were alone when you left the U.S."

"We married there, in Monteverde -- in Costa Rica."

"Do you have a marriage license?"

"The certificate is packed. In my suitcase."

"You've been out of the country three years. Why?"

"My father was ill. I was caring for him."

The man and woman conferred. Ada heard the woman say, "This is strange." The man said to Ada, "Wait here. We won't be long."

They were gone at least half an hour. There was nothing to read in the room, and Gabriel was asleep. Ada centered down and waited.

The man returned. "Welcome back," he said, and handed Ada her passport.

Wyatt was waiting in the hall with the others. "How long they question you?" he asked.

"I don't know."

Wyatt looked at his watch, then at the man. "We missed our next flight. Thank you very much."

"Wyatt," Ada said.

"Don't be so damn patient," he snapped. "They're supposed to work for us. I thought this shit went out with Nixon."

"Sir -- " the official began.

"I'm sorry," Ada said. "We're all very tired. We've had a long flight. We'll be going now."

Their bags were still on the carousel. They rented two carts and when they'd loaded them, set Clover on top of the heavy one. She rested against a suitcase. Maria carried Gabriel, and Ada pushed the lighter cart.

Maria had never stayed in a hotel, and hadn't slept alone in decades. At midnight she knocked on the family's door.

"[May I talk to Clover?]"

"Certainly," Ada said.

Clover was in a rollaway bed, next to her parents' king-size. Maria sat next to the girl and said, "[Clover, I'm very lonely. Can you come sleep in my room? I'm afraid to be alone. Everything is so strange.]"

"[Isn't this home?]"

"[No. I meant our old house. Everything is so different from our old house.]"

Clover didn't want to leave her mother. The room, and sleeping in the special bed with the wheels, was an adventure.

In the end, Maria slept in the big bed with Ada, the baby between them, and Wyatt slept alone in Maria's room. He had to call the front desk for a key because Maria had neglected to bring it with her. She was unaccustomed to doors that locked, or needed to.

At breakfast Maria couldn't read the menu, and Clover pretended to help, using arbitrary Spanish names for the items she pointed to on the plastic-covered list.

"They're all Tico," Wyatt said to Ada. "She doesn't know what we eat for breakfast. We'll have to order for her."

She didn't like the scrambled eggs. She tried her mother's pancakes and didn't like those, either. She loved Wyatt's hash browns, so he traded with her.

"Try ketchup on them," he suggested.

"What's that?"

He poured from the bottle.

"[This is good!]" She tipped the bottle, but it was pointing toward her, and ketchup splattered from the plate onto her blouse.

"We'll have to unpack and get her a clean blouse," Ada said.

"No," Wyatt said. "There isn't time. We'll clean it up."

"It will set."

"Can't be helped. I'll buy her a new one later. It's more important to catch the plane."

The latch on a suitcase broke. An airline employee strapped it shut when they checked their bags. Then one of Clover's sandals came apart, after the bags had vanished into the maw of the machine. None of the airport shops had any children's shoes or sandals.

"I'll carry you piggyback," Wyatt said. She always enjoyed that.

They arrived home with two hours of daylight. Wyatt unlocked the back door.

"Looks fine," he said. "Buzz did a good job. I'll have to buy him something nice. A new guitar or something."

The light on the answering machine was blinking. The last message was from Buzz: "Wyatt, it's me. You were gone when I called the hotel. Somebody took everything in your studio. I'm really sorry, man. I couldn't watch the place every minute. I reported it to the police. They want you to call them. Call me."

"I'm so sorry," Ada said. "How much were your things worth?"

"Maybe a hundred thousand."

"Dollars?"

"It's okay. It's insured. I'll take care of it in the morning."

Wyatt spent the next few days moving his exercise equipment from the front room to the basement (some of them had to be disassembled, carried in pieces and reassembled), teaching Maria how to use the phone, mowing the lawn, and checking what needed to be done. Some of the shingles on the roof were loose, the exterior needed repainting, and a pipe in the basement was dripping.

Each day, on average, was a bit more settled, but not any the less busy. He set up a swing on the big oak, and made a sandbox for Clover. He bought a cradle and a baby monitor and the million other odds and ends they seemed to need for Gabriel. He replaced the equipment in his studio. Maria learned to use the kitchen, and to do a bit of American cooking, though she mostly stuck to Tico dishes. Ada returned to school for a teaching degree. Clover began to speak English with everyone but Maria. Gabriel learned to walk and talk. And Ada gave birth to a third child, Melody.

This girl slept little, and waved her arms a lot. Except for her energy, the girl was no trouble. She was alert and healthy. She never had colic, or ear infections. Maria said she had never seen a baby that always wanted to be with people, and so rarely cried from being too excited. Instead she cried when she was left alone, or nothing was happening. They left her in the kitchen most of the time, where Maria spent her days and could keep the girl entertained with talk and play.

"[I am not lonely,]" she said. "[I always have Melodia to talk to.]"

They discovered that this infant, who hadn't even learned to crawl yet, liked to unscrew the lids from jars, and then screw them back on. They could leave her sitting on the floor by herself for an hour, and she wouldn't get bored.

Even as an infant, she disliked clothes. She removed her diapers as soon as she figured out how to; her parents were thankful that she potty-trained very early. In the bitterest winters she would throw her heavy coat on the ground, no matter how many times they put it on her. In hot weather she liked to be naked; if her mother dressed her, Melody sneaked outside and hid the clothes.

She was fascinated with her body, and worked to control it. She practised bending over backwards until she could put her hands on the floor behind her and walk around on all fours. "Look, I'm a caterpillar!" She always showed this trick to visitors. She liked to cartwheel around the house, in the yard. In grade school she discovered horses, and spent hours with the Larsons, who lived a block away, and kept a pony and a palomino on their large lot. She briefly took karate and gymnastics. Her truest love was dance, but she couldn't stick with lessons. She tried modern dance, and tap, and ballet, but every time found herself adding steps and techniques. She left all the classes because of the rules; they were more than she was willing to abide by. She was always in motion, unlike her sister.

Clover changed from a cheerful girl to a brooding, preoccupied one. She collected antique dolls and circus posters. She disliked going outside. Her hobbies were cerebral and sedentary: reading, and writing in her diary. She liked shopping for clothes. She spent endless hours grooming herself, and checking her appearance in mirrors. She couldn't walk past a window without glancing at her reflection; neither of her siblings did this.

Gabriel seemed to want only to be like his father. He helped Wyatt with chores, and took piano lessons from him, and spent hours talking to him at the kitchen table. He loved sports, and roaming outdoors. He often didn't come home until long after dark. His mother worried, but Wyatt interceded for the boy.

Wyatt watched the children and thought he was growing old. This wasn't what he'd expected. These children were like three songs played simultaneously and too fast: he wanted to slow them down and listen to one at a time. They were always at the perfect age, but changing too fast. He wanted to savor their changes. No sooner had he noticed a child invent a new quirk or skill than another child drew his attention. He couldn't keep up with them.