SHORTLY after her fiftieth, Amelia started spending time in the backyard shed. At first it was just a half hour or so after work. By her fifty-first birthday, however, Amelia was in there every night. ‘I’m working on something big,’ she’d say when questioned. ‘A surprise.’ But Brett and the kids noted there were never any sounds of industry coming from the shed, let alone finished pieces of god knows what. Instead, all that escaped through the cracks around the bolted wooden door were jazz tunes, cigar smoke, and a warm orange light that was both inviting and exclusionary.