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Piper is getting married. I remember when their grandparents were born. It doesn’t seem so very long ago. I bring a wedding gift, of course. A thick purple sea cucumber, almost too big for the happy couple to eat. The two of them exclaim in delight, because sea cucumbers bring many fine children, and because I’d come early enough that they could still talk. They were slowing down, of course. Piper and their mate—if I ever knew their name, I couldn’t remember it, I think they came from down the coast—were tenderly entwined, lounging together in their half-built house, gorging