“So, we came back three or four days later, and the empty box was on the doorstep waiting for us. We had another one with us, along with a few rashers of bacon and some eggs we’d got from Herron’s Butchers, they were just across the street from here. My father knocked on the door again, and here, this time, didn’t it open? I still remember the sight of her in the doorway. She can’t have been even five foot tall, as thin as my wee finger, and pale. And she was awful pretty, even with the filth of her. Like a doll. She was like a doll someone had found on the street. I was seventeen at the time, I think. A couple of years out of school, anyway. My father told me to quit staring, then he turned to her and asked if she was all right, if she needed anything. She just took the box of food from him and closed the door.

“But that was the start of it. Over the next lock of months, my father got boys out to tidy the place up for her, to fix the windows, patch-up the roof and whatnot. Paid them out of his own pocket. He got her some hens and a rooster and put up a wee house for them so she could have eggs. He helped her arrange renting out the fields she owned so she’d have a few shillings of her own, and she could pay him for the food. It was never as much as it really cost him, but he wanted her to feel like she was paying her way. That’s how things went on for fifteen years or so, then a stroke did for my father, and I took over. I’ve been going out there twice a week for forty-odd years. I’ve gotten to know her about as well as anybody could. People about the town here would say she’s mad in the head. Some of the children used to call her Scary Mary. And fair enough, she might be a wee bit touched, but who wouldn’t be after what she went through?”

He had finished ringing-up her items and told Sara the price. She fished her purse from the bottom of the shopping bag, opened it, and sorted through the few notes and coins. For a horrifying moment, she feared she might not have enough, and Damien kept her bank cards. He had done since they married, when he insisted on joint finances, and she agreed. She wasn’t good with money. He often told her that. After digging in the folds of the purse, she found the last few pence she needed and felt a wash of relief. She handed over the money in exact change, and Mr. Buchanan thanked her.