“Yes,” he said.

“He must have wanted to go back to Germany and find her and bring her back here,” she said. “I can’t think of any other reason he’d want to go back.”

Again, he thought of the photographs, of the woman and Boyd Cunningham sitting together, laughing for the camera. “Maybe so,” he said.

“It would have been all right with me,” she told him. “I’ve seen pictures of some of those children. They need all the help they can get. But I guess you know that, since you were there.”

He let a nod speak his agreement.

“It’s one good thing I can hold on to about Boyd,” she said gently. “That he cared about somebody else. I just wish I knew how to get in touch with the girl. I’d like her to know how he felt about her.”

He ran his hand over the armrest of the chair, trying to think of something to say. He wondered if he should tell her about the photographs. Thought: No. Nothing helpful could come of it. She needed a good memory of her husband and she had found it, even if it was a lie. Some lies served a purpose.

Eleanor slipped from the cot and went to the screen and looked out at the lake. After a moment, she said, without looking at him, “You’re getting ready to leave, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” he answered.

“Tomorrow?”

“I guess so.”

“Taylor told me you’d finished the store. Somebody saw you and told him.”

“That’s right. This afternoon.”

She stood gazing at the lake and the thickening of night, her body making a dim silhouette against the meshed wire of the screen. Cicadas sang. The lake’s water made blinks of light from the reflection of stars.

“You think you’ll ever come back this way?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe,” he said.

She turned to face him. He saw a smile dimple over the shadow of her face. “If you do and you want to grow rocks, I’ve got a farm for sale.”

He returned the smile.

“Oh, I want to show you something,” she said. She reached into the pocket of her dress and removed a photograph and handed it to Noah. It was the picture that Taylor had taken of the two of them on the night of the supper.

“Taylor had them developed,” she said. “He gave me a few of them. I thought you’d like to see this one.”

It was a clear photograph, and a telling one. The two of them looking into the camera, a smile—almost a laugh—on her face, a weak grin on his, a look of being out of place.

“It’s—good,” he mumbled. He handed the picture back to her and she slipped it back into her pocket.

“You’ve done a lot for me, Noah Locke,” she said.

He started to speak, but she lifted her hand to stop his words.

“I mean it. And I’m not just talking about helping with the cow, or anything like that. I think I’ve got some of my spirit back, and you’re the reason for it, or a big part of it, at least. And don’t ask me why I think that. I don’t know that I could tell you. I just know it’s true.”