All I heard was ‘I condition my pubes!’ she said, coming into the room on the current of a continuous conversation. There was more to be said about that; filling her in on what was said before to lead to that moment, but it doesn’t matter because it was said and heard and they shared it back and forth like a bottle or a balloon. The sound of laugher bubbled up and out, a natural spring in the woods on a forgotten afternoon when the sun angles in through a canopy of sycamore, tulip poplar, river she-oak, jagged little clouds that carry the rhythmic code of memory from shore to shore. Someone’s foot scuffed a folding chair away from the card table so she could sit down to join the game.