Something began to tick around the ring-shaped track, headed to the right. She pictured the stuff in Conner’s yard, humped over with morning glory vines, and imagined him never joining the Marines. Failing the medical, for something harmless but never noticed before. So that he’d stayed here, found some unfunny way to make a living, met a girl, gotten married. Not to her, definitely, or to Shaylene either, but somebody. Maybe from Clanton. Had kids. And his wife getting all the morning glory cleared away, and everything hauled off, and planting grass for a real front yard. But she couldn’t make it stick, couldn’t quite believe it, and she wished she could.