Dr. Ass stood up. He walked behind Wren’s chair. The mother gasped. Wren didn’t flinch.

Dr. Ass looked at the man’s immaculate cufflinks. His too-still posture. The faint smell of woodsmoke and old regrets.

Mr. Cross paid his forty dollars. Then he wrote a check for the Mulberry Creek volunteer fire department. The trailer’s sign got a new line: