The clouds ranged from the cleanest white to dirt-colored, tumbled together like clothes in a dryer. The sun was still below the trees, the light diffuse. Wyatt had planned to be well along with the heavy work by now. The day was already warm. He was the only one awake, except Ada, who always rose early, and Maria and Oscar, who were in the gazebo in the far corner of the yard. The children were still abed. Gabriel and Melody would probably sleep late; their friend Tim had spent the night.

Wyatt was thinking about his favorite mountains, the Sierras. He hadn't been there since the year before, and this year he wouldn't get there at all: no summer sessions in L.A., and the yearly family trip to Monteverde coming soon. He had little time to finish his jobs around the house. Then he'd have to come back early, before Ada and the children, for the tour with Palimpsest and Whisky Priest. Double his usual money, since he'd be backing both bands, but he was sorry he'd taken the job -- the earliest free time on his calendar was October, too late for reliable backpacking, even in the Sierras.

Buzz wheezed up the driveway, jogging at little more than walking speed. Wyatt watched him approach. Buzz stopped short of the porch and leaned over, hands on knees, gasping.

When the gasping slowed Wyatt said, "You should take it easier."

"Now you tell me." Buzz slapped his belly. "I'm trying to get rid of this, but there's a stitch in my side that'll kill me first." He dropped onto the steps. They bounced. "What are you doing?"

"I came out to work, but it smelled like rain and I saw the clouds and started daydreaming."

"Humid."

"Yeah. Every kind of weather here, delivered right to the door. Look at those clouds."

They watched the sky thicken and darken. A breeze came up.

Wyatt said, "The kids aren't up yet. Tim's probably asleep."

"I can wait." Buzz gestured toward the gazebo. "Who's that with Maria?"

"Her boyfriend. Oscar."

"What's the story?"

"He's from El Salvador," Wyatt said. "The death squads broke into his house and killed his wife and daughter. A neighbor waited. Warned him. Oscar turned around and walked out of the country. No money, no passport, nothing but the clothes he stood up in. Walking at night, hiding during the day."

"How did he get here?"

"Ada sponsored him. She did all the paperwork. Fought the bureaucracy when they tried to revoke his refugee status. Got him into classes to improve his English. He lived with us for a couple of years. Now he works for a farmer out east of town. Has a big garden and sells his vegetables on the weekends. Comes here to visit Maria. He built that gazebo to thank us."

"She looks older than him."

"Twenty years. Doesn't seem to matter to him. Or her."

They watched the couple. Maria, head bowed, listened. Oscar leaned forward, his hat in both hands, speaking without looking at her.

Buzz said, "Chick's schedule changed. He said he'll play tonight."

"I already arranged for Tony. Okay, bigger rhythm section. Tony can play the tall drums and all."

"We'll have to split the money five ways."

"Four. Chick can have mine." He stood. "Weather's changing fast. Clouds are thinning. I have to get this done before it gets hot." He pointed at an empty rectangle of railroad ties set against the wall of the garage. "See my wife's new garden? One doesn't seem to be enough. It was work getting all those ties set in. It's too damn big." He gestured at his pickup truck. "Now I've got a bed full of topsoil and compost. Want to help?"

"Let me rest."

"Okay. Just sit there and keep me entertained."

Wyatt backed the truck to the garden boundary. He reached in the glove compartment and pulled out a cigar and a book of matches. "I got this for you. Guess where it's from."

Buzz sat on the tailgate, feet resting on the top railroad tie, and lit the cigar. "This is good," he said. "Dominican?"

"No. Cuban. Don't tell the FBI on me." The blade grated when he pushed it under the dirt. He lifted and heaved the load to the ground.

"You're the hardest-working man I know," Buzz said.

"Is that why you hang around? Hoping it'll rub off?"

"No. I feel good watching you bust your ass while I take it easy."

Wyatt threw his shirt on the grass. The shovel slid, lifted, turned, and tossed.

"Which guitar are you going to use tonight?"

"The Telecaster. I haven't had it out in a while."

"Good. I like that sound, it's so thick," Wyatt said. "I'm thinking we need a horn. 'Heartbreak Hotel' doesn't work without a sax. And I want to add 'Peg' ."

"That needs more than one horn."

"We can get by with one guy. But it'll have to be a sax."

"That changes everything, unless he sits out a lot of songs. We need a rhythm guitarist more than we need a horn."

"Maybe we can find someone who does both."

"Right," Buzz said. "Good luck. Have you ever known anyone who plays rhythm guitar and sax?"

"Yes."

"In this town?"

"Good point. I guess we'll have to be patient."

"It's too soon to start adding new songs anyway. We need to get tighter on what we're doing now."

"We need a lot of stuff," Wyatt said, "mainly practice."

"You're always gone, man."

"It'll be better this winter. I don't have anything planned after October."

Round the corner of the house Gabriel came into view, behind him a skinny, nondescript brown dog, bouncing as it trotted. The dog's tongue hung sideways out of his mouth, and he seemed to grin, as if to say, "Look at this boy I found. He'll probably give me food." A humorous dog. He could have been part coyote, by attitude and springiness and general alertness.

"You're up early," Wyatt said. "I didn't hear you leave."

"I went to the forest."

"Who's that?" Wyatt asked. "You borrow someone's friend?"

"He followed me. Honest."

"I bet you didn't try very hard to get rid of him."

"Can I keep him? He's a great dog."

Wyatt jumped down and looked under the dog's tail. "Male," he said. "Your mother won't like this." He patted the dog on the head. It grinned up at him, and wagged its tail, once each way. "We'll have to put up posters. He may belong to someone." The dog wandered over to the truck and raised his head and sniffed the air. "He's probably thirsty. Get a bowl and give him some water."

"You'll end up feeding it yourself," Buzz said, when Gabriel had gone in.

The dog sat on the porch and watched the door where his boy had disappeared.

"No. Gabe's good about his chores. I'll get him trained." Wyatt sat on the tailgate. "Shit. This is too much like work. Why won't it rain?"

"You can quit. Do it some other time."

"And drive around town with a truckful of compost and dirt?" Wyatt resumed working.

"I'll help," Buzz said. He went to the garage and returned with another shovel.

Gabriel set a bowl of water on the porch and the dog stuck its nose in for a moment, then lapped.

Melody burst from the house, the dog dodging the flying screen door. Tim followed in her wake. "Uncle Buzz!" she yelled. "Do you want to see my new trick?"

"Another one? Sure."

She bounced on the grass, flinging her arms toward her father. "Help me, Daddy."

Wyatt held her so she could lean backwards until she supported herself on the palms of her hands. Arched over, belly up, she began to walk, alternating hands and feet.

"Look!" she shouted. "I'm a caterpillar!"

The dog licked her face and Melody collapsed. "Stop!" She seized the dog around its middle and pulled it onto her.

"That mutt's skinny enough to be an Indian dog," Buzz remarked.

"What are you going to call it?" Wyatt asked.

Gabriel thought. "Apache."

Melody let go of the dog and it sat next to her.

"Good name." Buzz flicked cigar ash on the dog. "I dub thee Apache." He took another puff. "It's official."

The dog licked at the ashes and sneezed.

"This is our dog?" Melody asked.

"Not yet," Wyatt said.

Gabriel scratched the dog's head. "He's mine."

"Kids," Buzz said.

"Yeah." Wyatt patted Gabriel's head. The boy didn't notice. His eyes were closed and the dog was licking his face.

Ada stood in the back door and looked across at Oscar and Maria in the gazebo. Wyatt watched his wife. Buzz watched Tim. Tim watched Melody. Melody watched the dog. The dog lost interest in Gabriel's face and lay on his side in the grass. No one spoke. Buzz took a long pull on the cigar and threw the stub in the half-filled bed of the new garden. Ada looked at her husband, and tipped her head in the direction of Maria and Oscar. Wyatt shrugged in response and climbed back onto the bed of the truck, where he resumed shovelling, Buzz working alongside. The children ran off in the direction Gabriel had come from, the dog trailing behind.

"You have a good thing here," Buzz said. "Every time I see your family, I miss Ginger. I wish she was still around." Ginger had died when Tim was three.

"Any time you get lonesome, come by. You're always welcome, even if I'm not here. Tim is, too."

"He's sure gotten tight with Melody."

"Yeah," Wyatt said, "but sometimes I worry she's going to set him a bad example."

The truck bed was finally empty. "Damn," Buzz said. "I'm glad that's done." He went for a broom and swept the truck bed clean.

Wyatt straightened. "Time for a rest. I'll break the clods later."

Ada had been watching from the kitchen. She called out, "Lemonade in here."

Clover was seated at the kitchen table, working chess problems from a book.

"I taught her to play a couple of weeks ago," Wyatt said. "She checked out six books from the library, the next day. She's read them all."

Buzz sat across from Clover and helped her set up the board.

"You take white," she said. "I like black better."

Buzz pushed his pawn; in minutes they were well into a Ruy Lopez. Clover seemed to have memorized the opening. In the middle game she chipped away at him. Her positional play was weak, but she was able to calculate far ahead. She threatened Buzz with combinations, always forcing small losses on him: doubled pawns, isolated pawns, bottled-up rooks and bishops, unequal trades. When he saw the mate in three moves, he looked at her. She grinned, and he tipped his king.

"I'm pretty good," he said, "but you're amazing."

"It's like playing a boa constrictor," Wyatt said. "She keeps taking in the slack, squeezing you. You can see it coming, but she's got you in her death grip. After a while there's no breathing room."

Clover's cheeks were pink. She was setting up the pieces.

"Dad?" she asked.

Wyatt took a pawn of each color, held them behind his back, then held them out to Clover. She picked the right fist. The pawn was white.

She shrugged, turned the board in a half-circle, and pushed her queen pawn two spaces.

Thirty moves later she said, "Checkmate."

"Get the clock," Buzz said. "You get ten minutes. I get twenty."

The game was a draw through repetition. Ada had watched the last few moves.

"Do you want to play, Mama?" Clover asked.

"I don't know how."

"I'll teach you."

"I'm hopeless at games. It would spoil your fun."

"Dad? Buzz?"

They both shook their heads. She went back to her book of endgame problems.

"What do you suppose the two of them are discussing?" Ada asked. She drifted to the window and stared at the gazebo. "They've been out there a long time. Maria looks sad."

"They'll tell us, or they won't," Wyatt said. "It's no use to wonder."

"I wonder whether he's ever proposed to her."

"Ask her."

"I have. She changes the subject."

"Gotta go," Buzz said.

Wyatt accompanied him into the yard and looked up at the sky again. The clouds had thinned to shreds, strips and patches of a tired blue beyond them. Buzz called Tim, and they walked off. Wyatt watched his friend until he disappeared around the corner of the hedge. Buzz was the brother he should have had, instead of the one he'd actually been given. No matter. He was a brother now.

He heard Melody squealing in the front yard. Probably she'd turned on the sprinkler again and was running through it. She was turning the front yard into a mudhole. Wyatt made a mental note to hide the hose for a few days.

He moved the truck to the end of the driveway, put the tools where they belonged, and looked around. Everything tidy. On his way back into the house, he held the door for Maria and Oscar.

"Call the children, please," she said. "I have something to say."

Melody's clothes had gotten wet, and she'd taken them off and run around naked, as she did every time she had an excuse, and many times she didn't. Wyatt thought her nakedness cute, but he was trying to break her of the habit, because it disturbed Ada. Since the child was wet, they wrapped her in towels. She climbed onto Maria's lap, facing out, and reached over her head, behind herself, for Maria's face, and Maria leaned down and kissed the top of the girl's head. Melody turned sideways and rested her cheek against Maria's bosom and embraced her.

"The children are growing up," Maria said in Spanish. Over the years she had given up speaking English. "I think they're very good children." She held Melody more closely.

"I love you, Grandmother," Melody said.

"I love you, too, sweet girl." She kissed the top of Melody's head again. "But you're getting big. You don't need me any more." She brushed a lock of hair over Melody's ear. "This is very hard to say. Don't be upset. Oscar has asked me to marry him, and I said yes."

"Is he going to live with us, too?" Melody asked.

"No. Soon we're going away."

"No!"

She said. "I'm sorry. We want to live with people like ourselves. People who speak Spanish and cook our kind of food and think the way we do. I want to hear Mass in Spanish. I want to live where I was born. This place seems strange. I'll never get used to it."

"No, please," Melody said. "I love you."

"Yes," Gabriel said. "You're our grandmother."

Tears rolled down Maria's cheeks, ignored. "Yes. You are my true family. But when you get married, you start another family. My heart is in two pieces." She sniffed.

Oscar took Maria's hand, the one not holding Melody.

The girl wiped the tears from Maria's cheeks. "Don't cry," she said. "Please don't be sad."

"Oh." Maria embraced her. "My sweet child. How I will miss you. How I will miss your love."

"Don't cry. Please. Did I hurt your feelings?"

"No. Sometimes life makes hard choices for us."

"Where will you live?" Ada asked.

"In my little house. Near the school."

"Henry's house," Ada said. "You can have Henry's house. He gave it to me. Now I'm giving it to you."

"Where will you stay in the summer?"

"With Henry. In the old house."

"Will you stay with me, sometimes?" Maria asked Melody.

"Yes. Can Gabriel stay, too?"

"Yes. Of course."

Clover left the room. Ada looked at Wyatt. He waited a minute and went up the stairs. She'd left the door to her room open.

"Want company?"

"I guess."

He sat in the big armchair. "Feeling left out?"

She riffled the pages of her chess book.

"I'm sorry," he said. "They know you won't be there. It's nothing personal. They wouldn't hurt your feelings." He waited. "Maybe I could ask your father again. Maybe this time he'll let you come with us."

She continued to riffle the pages.

"Why not come with us for the summer, so you can see what it's like. See where you lived when you were little. Ride horses with your brother and sister. Then maybe you can spend part of the school year in New York with your dad. We'll switch it around, do it the other way -- summer with us, winter with him. Would you like that?"

"I don't know."

"I'll ask him. You don't have to make up your mind yet." He waited for her to speak. "Clover?"

"Yes."

"You're as much a part of this family as anyone. Your mother loves you as much as the others. So do I. I've tried to adopt you, but Owen won't let me. Your brother and sister love you."

"No they don't. They never ask me to play. They never include me."

"Maybe you should -- "

"I want to be by myself."

"Don't -- "

"I want to be by myself. Please."

He put the palm of his hand on her book, stopping her from riffling the pages. "You push them away. You push us all away. As long as you do that, you'll feel alone."

"Please go away."

"This is what I'm talking about. We can't be close -- "

"Please!" she shouted. "Please!"

At the door he said, "We'll be in the kitchen. I hope you'll join us. It would mean a lot to Maria."

She nodded, without looking at him.