“I’m sorry,” she said, her words muffled by the pattering rain. “I should have insisted that we sleep in the shelter. I’d much rather live like a mole than carry on without you.” She pressed her fingers to the headstone. “I miss you terribly.”

Carefully, Susan adjusted the flowers between the graves, making sure they were evenly distributed. And after visiting her parents’ graves, she got on her bicycle, wiped a mixture of rain and tears from her face, and then pedaled away.

By the time Susan returned to the farm, the rain had become heavy, transforming the lane into a marsh. Unable to ride, she pushed her bicycle through soupy ruts until she reached the shelter. Inside, she tossed scrap wood lath, once sealed inside the plaster walls of the cottage, into a rusted iron woodstove to stoke a fire. As the scent of burning wood filled her nose, she removed the notes from her pocket, then draped her coat over a makeshift clothesline strung above the stove. She wondered, although briefly, if her clothes would always stink of smoke.

As she carefully unfolded the messages, she realized that the papers were damp and the writing was beginning to smear. Foolish of me to carry them in my pocket. She placed them on her cot to dry, resolving to store them in an empty tea tin.

Refusing to succumb to the somberness that always enveloped her after visits to the cemetery, she retrieved the sewing basket that she’d borrowed from Mrs. McCreary and went to work mending her tattered clothes. She replaced buttons. Patched holes. And as she was repairing a loose seam, she heard a slosh of footsteps. She stopped and put down her needle. Rain pelted the tarp roof. Through a crack in the wall, she caught a glimpse of a dark coat. A knock on the door.

Hairs stood up on the back of her neck. Susan hesitated, unsettled by the fact that she rarely had visitors.

Another knock.

She glanced at the messages. Her pulse accelerated. She stood and opened the door, causing her heart to sink. “Mr. Wallace,” she said, trying to hide her disappointment.

“Hello, Susan.” Jonathan Wallace removed his hat. Rain dribbled from the elderly man’s chin. “May I come in?”

Susan hesitated. “It’s rather uncomfortable, I’m afraid.”

“I don’t do well in this weather.” He turned a palm to the rain. “I raise pigeons, not ducks.”

Susan’s face flushed warm with embarrassment. She hated having anyone see her live like this, especially a respected member of the National Pigeon Service and, even more, a friend of Bertie. But she couldn’t very well leave him standing in the rain, so she stepped aside. She quickly gathered her sewing and placed the notes inside a tea tin, then gestured for him to take a seat on the cot.

Jonathan looked around the shelter. “How are you, Susan?”

“I’m well,” she lied.