Chapter 2 Summary

The summer weather is very hot. Melanie has bought a 12-speed Fuji with her waitress wages. On fair days, she pedals it downtown.

"On a hot summer afternoon, Harry drives south toward Galilee, a farming community in the south end of the county. He stops at the Post Office to inquire about the Nunemacher farm on RD 2. He is looking for the farm where his former lover, Ruth, and her daughter (Harry's daughter, too?) live. His only clue is that he once heard that the farmer Ruth had married also ran a fleet of school busses. He finally spots an old school bus tucked in behind the barn of one farm. He gets out of his car and proceeds on foot, the better to scope out the farm. He imagines a conversation with Ruth in which he knocks on her door and says...