Summary

It is evening, and Eveline is sitting at the window of her home, watching the afternoon fade into night. There are few people out, only the man who lived in the last house on the street is passing on his way home. As she hears the gravel crunch beneath his feet, she is reminded of her childhood when she and the other children of the neighborhood used to play in the vacant lot where several new homes now stand. She recalls one of the children standing watch so that she and her siblings could be warned that their father was coming to look for them. As she thinks back to these long-ago days, she realizes how much has changed: her mother is dead; so is Tizzie Dunn; the Waters family has returned to England. Now, she was leaving too.

As she...