“It’s for the digestion,” Frank said, taking a bite of pie. “The rocking motion. Helps move things along.”

Laura leaned against the kitchen doorway, arms crossed. “I wasn’t planning to.”

That’s when Laura saw it clearly for the first time. It wasn’t a toy. It wasn’t folk art. It was a throne. A ridiculous, shabby, carnivalesque throne, and Frank had become its king.

“Yeah,” he said. “Faster.”

“Faster?” Laura asked.

But after dessert, when Laura went to the kitchen to make coffee, she heard it.

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