“It’s nice to see you again, Henry. You look good.” She and her daughter turned and walked away. Halfway across the green, she looked over her shoulder at him.

“That was the most pitiful display I’ve ever seen,” Lester finally said, cackling. “I was shocked by a milking machine once when I was a boy. Knocked me off my feet. You look like I felt.”

“I can’t believe I didn’t say anything,” Henry said.

“Zap! That machine got me. Couldn’t say a word. I just opened and closed my mouth like a fish,” Lester said, and laughed some more. He lifted his cane and poked Henry in the leg. “Zzzzzzzzppppp!”

Henry jumped in surprise. “Very funny,” he said, and started to laugh.

Evanelle and Fred sat on the rock bench circling the fountain. They waved as Sydney and Bay passed, eating ice cream. Bay had the ugly brooch Evanelle had given her pinned to her pink T-shirt, and Evanelle felt guilty. Bay was so conscientious and concerned for others’ feelings that she felt she had to wear the pin just because Evanelle gave it to her. But that wasn’t a pin for a little girl. Why on earth did Evanelle need to give her such a thing? She sighed. She might never know.

“I’m nervous,” Fred finally said, rubbing his hands on his neatly pressed shorts.

Evanelle turned to him. “You look it.”

Fred stood and paced. Evanelle stayed where she was, in the shade of the oak-leaf sculpture. Fred was hot and bothered enough for the both of them. “He said he’d be here to talk. In public. What does he think I’m going to do if we’re alone, shoot him?”

“Men. You can’t live with them, you can’t shoot them.”

“How can you be so calm? How would you feel if your husband said he’d show up and didn’t?”

“Given that he’s dead, Fred, I wouldn’t be real surprised.”

Fred sat back down. “I’m sorry.”

Evanelle patted his knee. It had been nearly a month since Fred had asked for sanctuary in her home, and he had become an unexpected bright spot to her days. The whole arrangement was supposed to be temporary, but slowly, surely, Fred was moving in. He and Evanelle had spent days going through all her old things in the attic, and Fred seemed to enjoy the stories she told. He was footing the bill to renovate the attic space, and workers with nice posteriors started showing up, which Evanelle enjoyed so much she shoved a chair to the base of the stairs just so she could sit and watch them walk up.

It all had a nice ring of domesticity to it, and Fred would say he knew he deserved better than the way James was treating him. But sometimes, when Evanelle would pass him the butter at dinner, or hand him a hammer to hold while she hung a picture on the wall, he would look at what she’d given him, then look back at her with such expectation that her heart would crack like dry wood for him. Even with all his brave words, he still secretly harbored the belief that one day Evanelle was going to give him something that would make everything all right with James.