She blew out smoke, tipping up her chin. “But she’d been writing letters to Ty for two and a half years, and planning to marry him? And all that time, she was just waiting for Nick to come back?”

He corrected her; it seemed important to clarify all the details. “She didn’t think he would come back. But when he did, she wasn’t ready to tell him to leave.”

“Goodness. What happened next?”

JJ took a deep breath. “Well—”

But Dolly had just glanced at her watch, and her eyes got wide. “I’ve got to get home,” she said. “Byron could be getting home any minute!”

A sharp pain stabbed JJ’s stomach. He could find no words.

Dolly stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray between them, jumped to her feet, and hurried down the porch steps. She called back over her shoulder: “Can I come back tomorrow and hear the rest?”

“I thought you were quitting,” he joked.

“Very funny,” she said, starting down the long flight of steps to the sidewalk.

“Come back tonight,” he called after her. She stopped halfway down the stairs and looked back. He grinned; appealingly, he hoped.

She frowned. “You know I can’t.”

“All right,” he said, smiling, though his teeth were clenched. He reached for his pack of cigarettes. “Then come back tomorrow.”

Dolly smiled, then ran down the steps and turned up the street. He watched her until she was out of sight. Then, contemplating the Bear Trap as it sparkled through the trees in the light of the lowering sun, he smoked one cigarette after another, until the pack was gone.

Chapter 55

Because of women’s recent growth in socially recognized independence, any individual woman may waver between a craving for self-sacrifice and a repugnance to the very thought of it.

—The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book, 1939

HOME OF BYRON AND DOLLY MAGNUSON
406 Jefferson Avenue, Pine Rapids
Thursday, August 3, 1950

“How was your day today, Doll?” Byron asked her at dinner. Fortunately, he hadn’t arrived home until seven, and by that time she’d changed into a dress and apron and had the pork chops and rice and green beans all but ready to dish up. He would never know how long she had stayed with JJ, listening to the tale of the Mickelsons.

“Good,” she chirped, sawing at her pork chop. “I have a question for you.” She had decided that today was as good a day as any to start trying to bridge the gap between them.

“What’s that?”

“Would you tell me something about what you did in the war?”

He set down his fork and leaned back from the table. “Where’s this coming from?”

She shrank a little at his coldness. “I just—thought I’d like to know something about you.”

“It was a long time ago, Doll.”

“I just thought maybe if I could—know more about it—about you? We’ve never talked about it.”