It was a wonderful first year. Jim’s army duty felt like a regular day job. He’d leave the house at 6:30 and be back by 5:00. I’d have cold beer in the fridge and a hot meal on the table. We rarely touched the beer till late, though. Jimmy has always preferred playing his music as clearheaded as possible, which I understood and understand. After supper, he’d hold baby Leo until it was time for me to put him to bed. Then Jim would break out his new guitars and work on his songs. I’d brew us a small pot of coffee-which Jim has always wanted iced-and while he picked and hummed, I’d take out my writing and go to work at the kitchen table. I wrote a lot of wife and mother poems then, some of my best, I think. Jimmy thought so too. Most every night he’d ask to read or hear something.

Weekends I let Mama and Gram babysit, and Jimmy and I would go dancing with Ryder and his girl-of-the-moment. I liked Ryder from the get-go. Skinny men can’t help being adorable, and when you throw in Ryder’s talent with the harmonica, his big straight teeth, his way of laughing at most everything everybody else forgets to, well then I couldn’t help but look at him as the bony brother I never had. One night, after two-stepping ourselves silly at the Wrangler, a roadhouse across the San Antonio line right at the edge of the plains, we three gathered in front of Ryder’s car and made a vow to each other. Ryder still had the giggles from losing his date, a breasty blonde girl who it turned out was only fifteen, a point of information delivered to our table by her angry large brother. Ryder stood, bowed like a gentleman, then gave up his intended roll-in-the-hay with a straight face. We danced some more, then went outside to cool our sweat. From the Wrangler’s parking lot the sky looked magnificent. Jimmy said he was going to stand on the roof of Ryder’s Ford and pick me a whole galaxy. We all laughed.

“Heck,” Ryder said. “I thought she was fourteen.” He pulled out his harmonica and played a triple-time “When the Saints Come Marching In.”

Jimmy and I sat on the hood. Ryder stood in front of us. When he finished playing we went quiet for a few minutes. Jim had managed to walk outside with a full bottle of Pearl beer. We passed it around. I took a wonderfully long cold chugalug. It was Jimmy who brought up the vow.

“Listen, you two.” He had his arm around me. He reached out and lay his hand on Ryder’s shoulder. “Let’s never quit. We should swear to each other that we can’t ever quit.”

“Quit what, Guitar Jim?” Ryder still had a smile in his voice.