They did “repairs” but they were limited in know-how and strength. Instead, they learned where to step so they didn’t bring the roof down on them. They pooled every penny they had and biked into town to the dusty old thrift shop. They bought candleholders and framed pictures and books and anything they thought they could use.

After Miguel went back home to New Mexico, Vera didn’t go to the place as much. It had lost its appeal.

But when her father got ill, and all responsibilities fell onto her, Vera needed a place of her own.

One rainy night, she ran to the cellar, lifted the old door and went down the steps. It was too dark to see anything, but she knew where everything was. She collapsed on the damp sofa.

When she woke the next morning, she was shocked at what she saw. It was a disaster! The ceiling was ready to come down on top of her. However, the old concrete walls were good.

She tiptoed up the stairs, glad to get out alive, but the place stayed in her mind. She’d been left with the care of her mother and her little sister and nowhere to escape them.

Vera knew that for her sanity she needed a place where she could hide. She needed relief from endless criticism. Her mother didn’t approve of what Vera read, the letters of protest she wrote, what she talked about. “No husband wants... You should...” were terms Vera heard constantly.

It hadn’t been difficult to hire a couple of men from Lawrence to do what she wanted. They arrived with a backhoe and tore off what was left of the so-called roof. They removed all the rotting furniture, but she saved the thrift-store items she and Miguel had bought. The men put on a flat roof.

“This will leak,” they said. “First big rain and this place will fill up like a swimming pool.”

“Then I’ll bring my swimsuit,” she’d said.

The men shook their heads at her, then did their best with tongue-and-groove boards with asphalt shingles over the top. When she told them to dump dirt over it all so the plants could grow back, all they said was “Better not run any cattle over this.”

Vera was glad when they left and was pleased that she’d managed to keep the place hidden. Her great triumph was when she hooked up electricity that she got off one of Burke Hatten’s fences. If his workmen saw what she’d done, they never told anyone.

Now she was at her big table, made from sawhorses and two cheap, flat doors, when she heard footsteps on the stairs. That had never happened before and her hair stood on end.

As soon as she saw the black boots, she knew it was Miguel.

Bending, he looked at her. “I expected to see a sunken hole in the ground.”