She thought about it.

“And if people called you scared?”

“I’d let them.”

Khloe smiled slightly.

“You really don’t care what people think?”

Joseph looked at the school maintenance uniform hanging by the back door, the faded photograph of Sarah on the shelf, and the daughter who had finally begun leaving her bedroom door open at night again.

“I care what the right people think,” he said.

“Like me?”

“Especially you.”

Epilogue: The Next Labor Day

The following Labor Day, Marla Bennett held the block party again.

She said canceling it would be letting one bad afternoon decide what the whole street was allowed to remember. So she bought more paper lanterns, borrowed a second grill, and assigned Joseph a job that did not involve cooking anything.

“You’re in charge of the speaker,” she told him. “You can fix it when it breaks and leave the chicken to people with talent.”

Joseph accepted without protest.

There were changes around Oak Creek. The association posted meeting minutes online. The land-transfer proposal remained withdrawn pending redesign. Residents who had never attended a meeting before now took turns asking questions. The stormwater project was still slow, expensive work, but at least it existed in the open.

The Harrington house was quiet. Richard no longer sat on the HOA board. Marianne and Trent had not moved back. Some neighbors spoke of the family with satisfaction, others with discomfort, and most eventually found new things to argue about.

Joseph preferred the new arguments. They involved mulch, streetlights, and which house should host the Halloween decorations.

On the afternoon of the party, Khloe carried two paper cups of lemonade from the table toward her father.

“Careful,” he said as she approached.

She gave him a suspicious look. “Are you making a joke?”

“A small one.”

“Mom would’ve made a better one.”

“Almost certainly.”

Khloe handed him a cup and sat beside him on the curb.

The children played farther down the street. Someone was arguing over the rules of a beanbag toss game. The smell of charcoal drifted through the warm air. For the first time in a year, Joseph noticed the ordinary details without scanning them for trouble.