Robyn leaned her head against the window of the jet as it lifted into the air and the city dropped away. In its place, a wide expanse of farmland draped in snow thin enough that she could see the shape of the quarter sections, white square beside white square. She should remember this, the bird’s-eye view of farm fields in winter. She should think of this and not of yesterday, when she ran across the street and the lady there opened the door and there were four kids eating apple slices and watching Sesame Street, and they looked at her like she was a maniac. The lady said, “Oh my God,” and Robyn turned with her to look at the flames that reached out of the basement window and up the front of the house.
And she shouldn’t think of Frankie, who rushed back to the scene with her father and s
