This was not the reaction she had wanted, but she still hoped he would come to understand. “The door was open. I heard about your family from the Ladies Aid, and I was curious, I suppose, and I thought maybe I could fix the place up a little—I loved this place! I wanted to save it. I still do.”

“You were being nosy,” he said, laughing. “Snooping. You wanted the place for yourself.”

“Well, I thought I could make my life spectacular. More glamorous. I fell in love with this house! I couldn’t help it, JJ. I couldn’t understand why any family could leave it like this. I wanted to understand. And I still think you should tell me what happened. Even if you’d like to forget. You say it doesn’t do any good to look back at the past, but if you don’t, then what do you have? And isn’t it what’s torturing you, besides? Leaving all that inside you to rot you from the inside out? It’s the war, yes, but—this, too, isn’t it? Losing your home? In every sense? Your place in the world? Your family?”

He looked up, startled. She had hit a nerve.

“See,” she went on, “I could understand. You don’t know how alone I am. You don’t know the things I’ve left behind, the things I’ve given up on. Not to mention this house—do you think it can survive this kind of neglect forever?”

His smile was half a grimace. He was looking at the floor again. He pulled out a cigarette, lit it, and smoked.

She sighed, feeling disappointment descend upon her like a yoke. It was settled: She had been a fool, and arrogant besides, to think that God had had anything to do with her strange fascination with the house, or with JJ, when in all likelihood it was just her stupid loneliness, and her selfishness, that had spawned it.

She would not again make the mistake of horning in where she did not belong. “Well,” she said. “I guess I’d better go.” She turned, and walked past him toward the back door.

“Dolly,” JJ said, and his voice sounded a little hoarse.

Her hand had reached the back door’s knob, but she stopped, and looked at him.

“We were all over here,” he said, as he limped toward her. “Thanksgiving morning. Having waffles on Grandma’s gold plates, me and my mom and dad and Lissa and my uncle Harry and Anne and Grandma and Grandpa. And then there was this loud knocking at the front door.” He paused, his look a peculiar mix of appeal and defiance.

Somehow, it seemed enough. She cocked her head, feeling the weight of sadness lift from her shoulders. “Well, who was it?” she said.

Part Three - The Creation of the Wife