The uncomfortable truth was she wasn’t sure she could. Oh, there were all kinds of rational reasons: the book would provide her with an income stream, which was always better than living on principal; it might even help restore her reputation somewhat. But it wasn’t the money, and it certainly wasn’t the reputation—lose one once and you suddenly realized how flimsy they were in the first place. The truth was selfish. She wanted something for herself. She wanted to do something herself, something big, to show herself she could. To show the world she could.

She stopped in front of a neat white house with lace curtains in the windows, consulted the directions Liza had written down for her, and walked up the steps onto the small wooden porch. Adopting an expression of unthreatening feminine contrition—or at least that’s what she was hoping for—she knocked on the door.

Miller answered the door as she raised her hand to knock for a second time. His eyes were red and bleary, his beard unkempt and overgrown. He smelled of alcohol, but when he spoke his voice was sober enough.

“I don’t have anything more to say to you,” he said, watching her warily. “You can shout at me all you want, you can even get the lawyers on me about it”—here his expression grew even more anxious—“but you ain’t getting me back in that house. You might as well save your breath.”

“I don’t want to shout at you,” Alva said, although she certainly did. “In fact, I want to apologize for the things I said at the tavern. I shouldn’t have talked to you like that; it wasn’t respectful.”

“Oh,” he said, scrunching his eyebrows together. “Well, then.”

He shifted uncomfortably, and Alva sighed internally. “After all, you’re the foreman,” she said. “You know your own business much more than I do. I should have listened to you.”

“Right,” he said.

“The problem is,” she said, lowering her eyelashes, “I really have no one to guide me in these matters.” She tried to say since my husband died, but that was a falsehood too far. She peeked back up at him and was pleased to see the nonsense was having its desired effect. Miller’s face had softened.

“Well, I don’t mind saying, I’ve regretted some of my own words, ma’am. Truth is, I was a few sheets to the wind already. It was quite a shock, you know, seeing that. Can’t get it out of my mind; every time I close my eyes there’s that hand, creeping forward ever so dainty-like, and me thinking it’d look the same reaching for my throat.”

“How awful,” Alva said, and this time she spoke the truth.