“Caroline?” my mother said, as he began pulling the angel onto the lawn, dragging it over the bumpy terrain. I could tell she was concerned, but also trying to be careful to avoid another snit. In fact, she didn’t say anything else, even as the angel dug up more grass in a path behind itself.

“Don’t worry,” Caroline said finally, wiping a hand across her face. She was in shorts and a T-shirt, her hair pulled back in a ponytail. “I’m only stopping for a second. I need to take some shots of these and email them to Wally so we can decide which to take to the mountain house, and which I should just bring home with me.”

“Well,” my mother said, as Caroline and the salesman began to pull the larger angel onto the front lawn, positioning it for a second before going back to grab one of the smaller ones, “that’s fine. Just fine.”

None of us said anything for a few minutes as the pieces were assembled on the lawn. People kept driving past the house, then slowing, staring. My mother kept offering up her Good Neighbor wave and smile, but I could tell she wasn’t happy.

By the time Caroline and the salesman were done, there were seven pieces on the lawn: two big angels, two small, a large square piece, and two sculptures, one with the hubcaps and another made out of gears and wheels of various sizes. The salesman stepped back, wiping a hand over his face. “You sure you don’t want me to stick around to help you put them back in?”

“No, it’s okay,” Caroline said to him. “I’ll get one of the neighbor kids to help or something. I just wasn’t sure anyone would be here. But thanks.”

“No problem,” he said cheerfully. “Anything to help the cause. Deborah, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Right,” my mother replied, nodding. “See you then.”

As he left, my sister moved around the front yard, adjusting the pieces this way or that. After a second she looked down at the grass, as if just noticing the state it was in, then said, “What’s wrong with the lawn?”

I shook my head, glancing at my mother.

“Nothing,” my mother said evenly, as she walked up to the larger angel and peered at it more closely. “Well. These are certainly interesting. Where did you get them?”

“Macy’s friend Wes,” Caroline told her, wiping a smudge off one of the bicycle wheels. To me she said, “You know, he’s really something.”

“Yeah,” I said, looking at the angel with the barbed-wire halo. Away from the farmer’s market, and Wes’s workshop, the pieces seemed that much more impressive. Even my mother noticed. I could tell by the way she was still studying the angel’s face. “I know.”

“Wes?” my mother said. “The boy who drove you home that night?”

“Didn’t Macy tell you he was an artist?” Caroline said.

My mother glanced at me, but I looked away. Both of us knew it wouldn’t have mattered, at the time. “No,” she said quietly. “She didn’t.”

“Oh, he’s fantastic,” Caroline said, pushing a piece of hair out of her face. “I’ve been out at his studio for hours, looking at his pieces. Do you know he learned to weld in reform school?”

My mother was still watching me. She said, “You don’t say.”

“It’s just the coolest story.” Caroline squatted down, pushing one of the tiny wheels to make it spin. “They have professors from the university do volunteer outreach at the Myers School, and one of the heads of the art department came in and taught a class. He was so impressed with Wes he’s been having him take college level art classes for the last two years. He showed at the university gallery a couple of months ago.”

“He did?” I said. “He never told me that.”

“Oh,” Caroline said, “he didn’t tell me either. His aunt was there, I can’t remember her name—”

“Delia,” I said.

“Right!” She started back toward the truck. “So anyway, we got to talking while he was loading up the truck. She also said he’s had offers from several art schools for college, but he’s not even sure he wants to go. As it is, his stuff is selling in a few galleries and garden art places so well he’s on back order. And he was a winner of the Emblem Prize last year.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“It’s a state arts award,” my mother said to me, looking down at the small angel near her feet, whose halo was decorated with small interlocking wrenches. “The governor’s committee gives them out.”

“It means,” Caroline said, “that he’s amazing.”

“Wow,” I said. I couldn’t believe he hadn’t told me all this, but then again, I’d never asked. Quiet but incredible, Delia had said.

Caroline said, “When I took those other pieces I bought and set them up in my yard, the women in my neighborhood went nuts.” She adjusted the square piece, which, I now realized, was made up of what looked like an old bedframe. “I told him I’d probably have offers for twice what I paid for this stuff once I get it home. Not that I’m selling, of course.”

“Really,” my mother said, looking at the square piece, her head tilted to the side. Wes had removed the legs of the frame, leaving just the boxy middle part, then put shiny chrome along the inside. It tilted backwards on two outstretched pieces of pipe, so if you stood right in front of it, it looked like a big picture frame, with whatever was behind it the image inside. The way Caroline had set it up, it framed the front of the house perfectly: the red front door, the holly bushes on either side of the steps, then a set of windows.