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stood facing each other, one of them flanked by the dry goods store, the other by a drugstore and the post office. Beyond them were a few new shops that Judith didn’t recognize, and some of the old ones were gone.
    Two blocks down, opposite the small movie theater that was now boarded up, stood the Borrego Building—a four-story brick structure that housed the bank on its main floor and the offices of Borrego Oil Company on the floors above. When it was built, it had been intended to be the first of many multistoried buildings in what everyone had hoped would become a small city.
    But Borrego was still nothing more than the little town it had always been, crouched in the high desert, all but bypassed by the development along the interstate to the south.
    Yet Judith found she was glad so little change had come to the town. She felt oddly comforted to recognize some of the people who stood chatting in front of the tiny post office, their faces weathered by the desert climate, but their features—like the town’s own—essentially unchanged, only more deeply ravaged by time and the elements than they’d been a decade ago.
    She left the town behind, driving east for a mile, then turned up the long drive that led to the foot of the mesa and the big house—a bastard-Victorian structure that stood defiantly at odds with its environment, not quite a mansion, but by far the largest home in Borrego. Old Samuel Moreland had built it for his wife at a timewhen no one else was building such things. His son Max, and Rita Moreland, still lived there.
    Surrounded by a grove of large cottonwoods that sheltered it from the sun and screened the most ornate of its gingerbread details from the viewer, it had a look of solidity and permanence to it that Judith admired. Tall, and somewhat narrow, it seemed to peer out at the desert with a spinsterish disapproval, as if eyeing its surroundings with thinly-veiled distaste. Judith pulled the Honda to a stop in front of the house, then stepped out into the cool shade of the cottonwood trees. Even before she’d mounted the steep flight of steps to the porch, the big door opened and Rita Moreland stepped out, her arms spread wide in welcome.
    “Judith? Is it really you? I hadn’t thought you’d be here until tomorrow!”
    Judith rushed up the steps and into the older woman’s embrace, then pulled away to get a good look at the woman who’d been the closest thing to a grandmother she’d ever had.
    “You look wonderful, Aunt Rita.”
    It was true. Rita Moreland, at seventy-two, looked no more than sixty. She still held her tall, somewhat angular frame perfectly erect, and she was dressed in the sort of simple linen skirt and blouse she had worn as long as Judith could remember. Around her neck was an antique silver and turquoise squash-blossom necklace, and her wrists held several bracelets, most of them modern Hopi designs. Her hair, snow white, was rolled up into an elegant French twist, held in place by a silver comb. Only her eyes, alight with pleasure, belied her look of cool composure.
    “Well, you’ve changed,” Rita replied. “All grown-up, and just as pretty as your mother. Although,” she added,cocking her head speculatively, “I think perhaps your hair’s starting to darken a little.”
    Judith grinned. “It’s called aging, Aunt Rita. Is Uncle Max here?”
    Rita’s eyes clouded for just a split second, then cleared as she shook her head. “Oh, no—always at the office, or the plant. You know Max—he’ll work till he drops, even though he keeps promising me he’ll slow down. Now come on, let’s get you inside.” Before Judith could protest, Rita had darted down the steps and pulled one of Judith’s bags from the backseat of the Honda.
    Upstairs, Judith gazed with unabashed pleasure at the room Rita had chosen for her. It was a large chamber in the corner—almost two rooms, really, since the tower that rose at the southwest corner of the house was incorporated