cricking axis, facing away from us. Its rust-red cockscomb. I point it out to her, but she doesn’t look. We are marching now, single-filed, the garbage bags flapping from our pockets.

A breeze sends honeysuckle. I watch for the cockerel to turn on us, but its pivot is immobilized by rust. When I convulse in sneezes, she turns around and puts her hands up like, What do I do with you? How many times I’ve said “allergy season” this season. Near her father’s house, behind a tangle of grape-bearing vines, we lose the swagger.

Moments like these — standing on the cement driveway while she pokes at potential garage door codes — I remember a hide-and-seek truth: visibility has as much to do with time as it does space. A few seconds can feel like an hour under the floodlights.

I whisper at her back. “What’s wrong? Isn’t the code working?” Apparently, he’s changed it, a personal insult to her because the code was her birth date (0-3-1-9). Later, she’ll mention how the old code made access to that house seem like a birthright.

Once we’re in (the code is now his birth date) — the garage door tri-folding up, then down — we hurry to calm the dog, a setter. Jericho stops barking when he sees her.

“So big,” she says to Jericho. “So big now.” It’s been decades in dog years since she’s seen him.

I look around the kitchen at mail strewn on a laminate island, its uncleared dishes, a rice seasoning packet, purpled wine glasses, new fishing licenses, notepad scribble, a coil bracelet keychain, a water bottle lid, a rebate check with a sticky note on it (Before Jan). There are custom magnets on the refrigerator from DelMarVa beaches, a nephew’s graduation photo, and a demijohn of homemade wine. I can see the porch through the front room windows, the welcome mat I’ve bypassed. My sympathetic