Everyone dated the demise of our neighborhood to the suicides of the Lisbon girls. People saw their clairvoyance in the wiped-out elms and harsh sunlight. Some thought the tortures tearing the Lisbon girls pointed to a simple refusal to accept the world as it was handed down to them--so full of flaws. But the only thing we are certain of, after all these years, is the insufficiency of explanation.

"Obviously doctor, you've never been a 13-year-old girl."