“No, my grandpa had an electric pump and stuff installed when I was a kid, and hooked up to city water.”

“Well, you certainly smell better!” Dolly blurted, and then she blushed. “Or, I mean—”

He laughed. “That’s good,” he said. For a moment, he held her in his gaze.

She blinked, and quickly stepped away. “I’d better get to work!”

He seemed to sigh a little, but he said nothing as she scooted past him out of the room, telling herself, The house, Dolly! That’s all!

Chapter 43

Superior, Wisconsin
Thursday, November 8, 1945

“You had the truck last night, didn’t you, Mr. Mickelson?”

Harry looked up from his copyediting, rubbed his right eye with his knuckle. He’d fallen asleep at his desk the night before and hadn’t awakened until five in the morning, when Maggie shook his shoulder, saying, “Mr. Mickelson? Mr. Mickelson, you’ve got to stop doing this!” She brought him a cup of coffee to camouflage his sleep-tainted breath; he’d combed his hair in the men’s room, and made a mental note to bring in a toothbrush and razor from home. The day had flown by in a whirl of deadlines, strewn papers, arguments, spilled ink. Now it was three P.M., and Harry was still at his desk, editing some of Tinnanen’s copy for tomorrow’s edition. No matter how many times Harry told them, it seemed the staff wouldn’t stop ending sentences in prepositions. It gave him a headache.

“Yeh, I did, Jorstad, what’s the trouble?”

A grin split Mike Jorstad’s stubbled face. In charge of delivering the Gazette to vendors around town, he was dressed in his typical denim coveralls; he doubled as the old truck’s mechanic. Jorstad tossed a black glove onto Harry’s desk. “Entertaining one of your lady friends?”

The glove sprawled on the desk. “This was in the truck?”

“Passenger’s side floorboard. Belong to someone you know?”

“I suppose it must.”

Jorstad shook his head. “It’s quite the life you lead, Mickelson,” he chuckled.

“Thanks, Jorstad,” Harry said, dismissing him.

He tried to get back to work, but the words swam before his eyes. Before long, darkness began to fall outside. He was sore from the night spent hunched over his desk. And thoughts of Anne kept surfacing with the bright persistence of dandelions in a lawn. He surely did want to know whether she slept in a nightgown or pajamas.

Maggie came in to say good night; no matter what he said, she insisted on working hours almost as long as his.

“Night, Maggie,” Harry said. “Say, can I ask you something?”

“What’s that?”

“If you left your glove somewhere, and someone found it, would you want them to go out of their way to bring it to you?”