The cab driver dropped me off at the corner of Woodland and Maple, three blocks from the house. I guess he thought that was crazy, but I wanted to walk up to the house from the west on Maple, the way I always used to. As he pulled away, I looked at my watch and it was 8:30, which was about right. It had always been around 8:30 in the summer with the street lights on, even though the last faint orange of the day was still glowing behind the trees. I started walking west on Maple, back through the neighbourhood where Shirley and I used to be eighteen.