The dinner party was too large for the kitchen that night, so they ate on the front porch as the sun fell and talked as the moon began its long ride across the sky. Reggie and Dana Parker’s truck sat parked in the side yard; Susan had offered them the spare room on the second floor, but Dana said, in a voice almost too low to hear, that she was more comfortable in their truck’s sleeper. In the end, they agreed to park by Susan and Penny’s house so they could be close to Zoe while she stayed in the house and enjoy some of the comforts of home while they were in town.
Erasmus’s presence was something of a mystery. Penny was beginning to suspect he’d stolen her brain, as he liked to call it, and convinced her he was a family friend in order to keep closer tabs on Penny. Susan finally ended t
