AFTER
It was late on a summer afternoon, and heat rippled above the sand. Nora had her windows open as she drove up the fire road from Marzen, and the wind tossed her hair around her shoulders. It was the day before Britta’s hot air balloons would fill the sky over the Great Basin, and it was the first time Nora had driven this road since she’d brought Sal home on the last day of school.
At the Prentiss place, Sal waited for her on the cinder block steps with his backpack, the yellow dog’s head in his lap. The sun was about to dip below the hills and take the heat with it, but the light it cast on the boy and the dog was still thick and golden.
As Nora got out of her car Gideon came out of his shed, wiping his hands on a rag. He wore jeans and a stained gray tee shirt, and the sawdust i
