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guess. It hit him pretty hard. He was in the eleventh grade, never did finish his year.”
    Iris Hawkins went back to washing. Jim didn’t want to push her too far but, as it turned out, she was only collecting her thoughts.
    â€œDied on New Year’s Eve. In a fire — a fire he started himself.”
    â€œYou mean it was suicide?”
    His mother shrugged. “At the inquest they called it death by misadventure. At least, I think that’s what it was called. I didn’t know him. I didn’t even know your father then but he talked about it from time to time. It troubled him.”
    â€œDoes death by misadventure mean it was a mistake, kind of? Like he was playing with matches and it got out of hand?”
    Iris nodded and went back to her work. Then she dried her hands and turned to face him. “Since you’re so morbidly interested, the boy was a known arsonist. A pyromaniac. Do you know what that is?”
    Jim nodded hesitantly. “Someone who likes fire?”
    â€œSomeone who
starts
fires,” his mother said. “I like fires, in their place. This Frankie kid, he started all sorts of them in the area. Some of the old-timers could tell you. At first, I guess, it was just mischief, an outhouse or a tumbledown shed. But it got worse. He burned down a chicken shack up at Lar Perkins’ father’s place and killed twenty layers and fifty meat birds. Then he hit a small barn at Jock Boomhower’s with a couple of cows in it. That’s when he got caught. Sent off to jail.”
    â€œBut he came back?” asked Jim.
    â€œCame back and burned down the house his family had lived in. Can you imagine? Of course, no one was living in it then. His family had moved. Wilf Fisher had bought the property and was using the old place to store hay.”
    â€œIn a house?”
    â€œIt was a very old house. A log cabin. You know the place. It’s in the low field just east of the cut road, below the Fisher mansion.”
    Jim knew the field, all right, but he couldn’t remember any house.
    â€œIt’s just a rubble heap now,” said his mother.
    â€œMostly grown over. Heavens, it must be twenty-five years ago, at least.” He saw her do the math in her head. “1972. New Year’s Eve, 1972.”
    His mother’s eyes glanced up at the clock above the kitchen table and Jim took the hint. He turned back to his homework, but his mind was buzzing. A moment later, his mother scruffled his hair as she passed him on her way upstairs.
    â€œI’m going to take a shower,” she said. But she turned at the parlour door. “I remember now. The family was called Tufts. Francis Tufts.”
    As soon as she was gone, Jim sat back in his chair thinking through what he had learned. Did Ruth Rose, who knew everything, know about this fire? And Francis Tufts — it wasn’t much of a stretch from that to Tuffy. But what did it have to do with her stepfather or his own father’s disappearance?
    Nothing. It was ancient history. And he would probably end up as cracked as she was if he started thinking that way.
    Snoot suddenly jumped onto his lap and Jim cried out in astonishment, which frightened the kitten who jumped right off, taking some flesh from his leg with her. Her sharp little claws had gone right through his jeans. He rubbed his thigh and settled back to work.
    His mother kissed him goodbye on the way out, went over for the hundredth time the business about locking the doors and checking the woodstove and which lights to leave on.
    â€œI know, I know,” he said, submitting to a second and third bone-crushing hug.
    â€œHot cinnamon rolls for breakfast?” she asked. Jim looked appropriately blissful. The Sunflower Bakery was just firing up when she got off work, and sometimes she would stop by on her way home. She came home stinking like soap. “I’m going to have to rub myself down with a fish,” she had said once.