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"No pretending."

"Not one."

I go up on my toes. He bends. His mouth meets mine. There's no performance in it, no dare, no lantern-lit bridge, only a man and a woman on a porch with the sun going down, kissing like they've been underwater and have just broken the surface.

I wrap my arms around his neck. His hands slide down my back, over the paint-stiff overalls. He lifts me, and I jump, and we both laugh and stumble toward the door together. I wrap my legs around his hips. We hit the doorframe. He steadies us. I laugh into his mouth.

"There's pie," I say against his jaw.

"Later."

"My grandmother said you'd need something to do with your hands."

"I have a better idea," he says, and carries me inside.

He kicks the door shut behind us with his heel. I catch a glimpse over his shoulder of the porch through the glass. The swing, the mums, the long orange bar of light on the boards, exactly the way I painted it. In the living room behind us, on the big canvas, the door stands a hand's width open.

Behind us, the porch light stays on.

Epilogue — Ben

Four Years Later

The Historical Society wants five shots this year, and I'm going to have to tell Bunny Fenwick no.

She's crossing the Common toward the cannon at a speed I associate with ordnance. Pumpkin blazer buttoned to the throat, enamel pins flashing, clipboard at port arms. Behind her, two Society members in tricorn hats are pretending to inspect the plinth.

I've measured four charges into four brass cups and lined them up on the loading table. I'm standing over them in the tricorn Bunny won in a negotiation that is now Society legend. I conceded the buckles. I lost the hat.

"Ben," she says. "Five."

"Four."

"The Wilkins Foundation donated the new carriage. I promised the board we'd mark the occasion."

"The carriage has nothing to do with the barrel."

"A fifth shot is festive."

"The barrel's rated for a four-charge salute, Bunny. A fifth is nine percent over the safe working load. I'm not putting that over three hundred kids and a pie tent."

"Nine percent," she repeats, like I've said something rude.

"Nine."

"Alfred?"

Mr. Alfred Tolliver, ramrod man of the Society since the day he retired from the mail, doesn't look up from the worm he's oiling.

"Boy's right," he says. "I walked past every window in this town for forty years. I'm not paying for a fifth shot's worth of glass."

Bunny's mouth thins. She writes something on the clipboard with real violence. "Four," she says. "Tradition."

"Tradition."

"The hat stays on."

"The hat's staying on."