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tongue-tied.
    “It was right after her divorce. Then what happened?” said Kaye. “The rest of the story, or I won’t fix your hat.”
    “
You
and Jane Ericsson got together?” asked Osborne. “Ray, the woman must have been—”
    “Thirty,” said Kaye. “She was thirty, wasn’t she, Ray?” Kaye spoke with a smirk on her face. Osborne felt a growing sense of discomfort. The Kaye Lund badgering his friend—a man he knew to be guilty of grievous mistakes, but never one of unkindness—was not the Kaye Lund he knew and liked.
    Ray’s face had turned so red, Osborne felt sorry for him. “Listen, you two,” said Osborne, “my granddaughters have a saying: ‘TMI.’ It means ‘too much information.’ I have heard enough, okay?”
    Rocking her chair with a vengeance, Kaye chortled. Osborne turned his attention back to the photos on the wall, determined to ignore any new details that might be offered. After a minute had passed with no further commentary from the rocking chair, Ray gave a low sigh of relief. Of the two black-and-white photos on the left, the top one must have been a high school graduation portrait. The girl in the picture had a shy smile and straight dark hair cut in bangs across her forehead. She wore a dark sweater and a single strand of pearls. The second picture, just below, was of the same woman but a few years older. This time the camera showed her standing in heels and a dark-colored dress against a lilac bush in full bloom. In her arms she held a baby wearing a white christening gown that flowed down to the mother’s knees. Osborne didn’t have to ask who the baby was.
    Over the center of Kaye’s kitchen table hung three enlarged photos—these in full color—that had been taken in the summertime. In the first picture, Kaye appeared to be about ten years old, and the other youngster maybe four or five. The photographer had captured the girls in midair, leaping side by side over a bright red wheelbarrow, eyes shining with delight.
    Next was a picture of the same two girls in swimsuits, older now, diving simultaneously from a raft into the brilliant blue of a lake. The third photo showed them standing on a dock, still in their swimsuits, with arms entwined as they smiled for the camera. Osborne guessed Kaye to be around fourteen in the latter two photos, while the younger girl, though taller, had the string-bean awkwardness of an eight-year-old.
    “I didn’t know you had a sister, Kaye,” said Osborne as he studied the pictures.
    “I don’t. That’s JT, back in our sister days.”
    “JT?” asked Osborne.
    “Janie, you know, Jane Ericsson. Growing up, we called her JT—short for Jane Therese, which is what her mother insisted on calling her. Funny you ask if I had a sister. Until her folks sent her away to school, I felt like she
was
my little sis.
    “But things change, always change, can’t beat change. Umm …”
With a yank of her teeth, Kaye pulled a thread that released the trout from its anchor on top of the leather cap. Setting the fish in her lap and letting the cap dangle from her right hand, Kaye leaned back in the rocker as she spoke. “My very first job was babysitting JT. I couldn’t have been more than ten, and she was four—a smart aleck little kid.” She grinned at the memory.
    “Brother, did we have a good time in those days. I taught JT where to catch the biggest crappies, how to shoot a .22, how to catch fireflies. My mother was close by if we needed anything, but mostly we had all day to ourselves.
    “Yep, I took care of JT every summer till she turned twelve. That picture of us diving—that was the year we named ourselves ‘the summer sisters.’” Osborne heard sadness in her voice.
    “You two are still close, aren’t you?” asked Ray. “Taking care of the property the way you do, getting everything in that big new house into tip-top shape when she comes to stay? That must be kind of fun. I imagine you’re getting quite a kick out of her