So they went upstairs to a bedroom of six tall windows with a bed of carved walnut where they stayed the afternoon. They could hear putty knives grate and sing on the wood. A two-section ladder banged all around the house. And I guess Bryant was still on the divan eating orange meat from the peel when Bob and Eugenia came back downstairs for a dinner of chili and corn bread. Bryant scraped out the bread pan with his knife and rolled the crumbs into a cornball. And Eugenia said, “I tried on stitched aprons in a Hennessey dry goods store and asked the ladies their opinions while letting it slip that I’d just divorced a brute of a man named Harry Jones in the Dakota Territory and that the settlement was substantial enough to buy and repair this homestead. You’ve never seen such pity.”

Bryant grinned. “Ain’t she the cleverest woman, Bob?”

My brother banged his spoon down and said, “When I’m gone this house is off limits, Charley. I don’t want you anywhere near her. Soon as you’re gone I’ll probably throw your plates in the compost heap.”

Bryant merely smiled.

Bob poured coffee from the pot at the stove and lifted the apron hanging there. “What are these supposed to be on the pockets, Easter lilies?”

She looked and turned back to the table. “Yes.”

He let the apron drop. “Don’t wear it. It gives me the shivers.”

After Bryant left that night, Bob hauled inside what he’d piled on the wagon: a spindle rocker and two pink-flowered lamps, a wedding-ring quilt, a trivet, a peach crate stuffed with wadded newspaper and 1848 New York crystal. Also two books of poetry, one by Tennyson, one by Longfellow; a fountain pen and an inkwell; a valuable silver set made by Paul Revere, a drop-leaf cherry wood table, and a fine authentic oil painting depicting Venus and the four seasons.

He said, “This is better than money can buy, Miss. You don’t see finery around these parts like this. Do you? The answer is no. This is San Francisco quality; every blessed piece.”

And they sat naked on top of the sheets upstairs with warm champagne and a white candle burning orange on a chair seat. She asked, “Do you enjoy having people afraid of you?”

“Yes.”

“Did you like your father better than your mother?”

“Yes.”

“Is Emmett your favorite brother?”

“Yes.”

“Umm. If you had a choice would you rather live in the city or the country?”

He poured champagne into his crystal glass and put the bottle down on the floor. He drank the champagne looking at her. “City. New Orleans maybe. Next to the ocean.”

“Do you dream about me?”

“Sometimes.”

“Am I naked?”

“Yes.”