Sometime in early July, her heart began to blubber. At least, that’s what Minna decided to call it, blubbering, as it wasn’t flutter, something light and dreamy as a summer butterfly. It wasn’t just a skip, like a stone thrown for hop scotch. It was a deep, lumbering growl, a blubber of movement, action plus blood, a flop in her heart like heavy gas, enough to leave her stunned and pale. But still alive.

To many, Martin Leonard appeared the epitome of suburban failure. Lost in any gathering, no matter how small, he knew how replaceable he was. Not only in his work as a bookkeeper at the Dalton regional tax office, which he executed to a standard barely sufficient to maintain his position, but in his home as well. His wife Nevena, who had added fifty-five pounds to her once athletic frame in their fifteen years together, had only recently stopped her constant chastisement, replacing her blatant contempt with a new and punishing silence.

Danny’s bedroom was silent except for the scratch of his yellow number-two pencil across the paper. Mom says Dad is just going to church until the judge decides, Danny wrote. I don’t know. He took Sis and me to church yesterday. Dad knows all the prayers and stuff. And they had chocolate chip cookies.

The patron saint of extras is Kevin Costner. You know the story. How in 1983 the budding young actor was tapped to play Alex in The Big Chill, the character whose untimely demise provides the occasion for Jeff Goldblum and the rest of the cast to drive around soulfully in their BMWs