That had been their life. She’d made a home at whatever base he’d been assigned to. When he’d had leave, they’d traveled everywhere together. When his work had taken him overseas, she’d waited for him to come back to her. Being married to Stuart was all she knew. Three years after his death, she still only knew how to be his wife. Even her handyman business had grown out of her life with Stuart. Now it supported her and gave her something to do with her day.

There were supposed to have been children, but they’d wanted to wait until they were thirty and then his mom had died, so they’d waited another year and then Stuart had been gone.

“I’m sorry,” Dagmar said unexpectedly, pulling Unity close. “I’m pushing you and that never goes well. It’s just I hate to see you wasting your life, hanging out with a bunch of old farts with cataracts and spider veins. You should be with some young people, going out and having fun.”

“I have fun with you.”

Dagmar released her and smiled. “I am a good time, aren’t I? And while I appreciate the compliment, I was thinking more in the lines of sex. Darling, you desperately need a man.”

“I was thinking more of getting my bangs trimmed.”

“How very sad. All right, young lady. One more house check for silly crystal figurines. Although I’m in no position to cast stones. After all, my house is a shrine to all things Thomas Kincaid. I can’t help it. His work moves me. Plus, I can get new things dirt cheap at the estate sales around here.”

Unity did one more pass through the house. For now she was happy to live in what had been Stuart’s house, surrounded by his life as a boy. The familiar was comforting. But in another twenty-one or so years, she would qualify to move to Silver Pines and wasn’t that something to look forward to?

three

The shrieks, laughs and yells were louder than usual, as the last day of school wound down. Ellen sat at her desk, thinking her students would be shocked to know Ms. Fox was just as excited as they were at the thought of having the summer off. But while they were done for the semester, she still had final exams to finish grading.

Ah, to have a subject that lent itself to Scantron testing, she thought wistfully, eyeing the tall stack of papers she would be wading through. But on her tests, partial credit was always available for the work done correctly, so every pencil mark had to be studied for its potential value to the final answer. She pulled the top test off the stack and uncapped her red extra-fine-point Sharpie and went to work.

Two hours and thirty-three minutes later, she had a mild headache and a slightly sore hand, but she had finished. She entered the grades into the computer, then happily hit the send button.