It took a moment for Martha to understand what he said, she was so flustered that a stranger would talk to her. Then she remembered seeing the boy on the tractor, waving to her as he left. She always went inside when he came. But surely, it couldn’t be this boy. The last time she had seen him he was young and skinny. And this boy was older; this was a man.

She smiled at last, lines of confusion leaving her forehead. “Leon?”

“Yes, Leon. Let me buy you another drink.”

“No. I buy. For all.” She looked at Mike, then busied herself in her purse. She pulled out a wad of bills and handed them to Mike. All eyes at the bar looked in amazement. Mike took the wad of bills, picked out a five and gave the rest back to her.

“Hey, Martha,” Leon said quietly. “You shouldn’t carry money around like that. Someone’s likely to steal your purse.”

“Yeah, like me,” one of the other boys said, then snorted a laugh. He was cut off short by hard glares. His face reddened.

“I’ll tell you what. After we finish our drinks, I’ll take you home, okay?”

Martha smiled. “Okay!” Another friend. She glowed inside. She looked at Mike. He smiled, relief flooding through him. Thank God. Leon’s a good kid. Always helping out. Jesus, I don’t want any trouble over this woman.

When Martha had slurped up the last of her root beer and wiped the mustache from her lip, smearing her lipstick and exposing some of the scar, Leon left his friends and walked out into the afternoon sun with her. He held open the door of his old pickup truck parked at the curb and helped her inside.

They bounced their way to the farmhouse, truck squeaking and rattling. “Gee, I better get over here with my mower pretty soon, huh?”

“Yes,” she said softly. “Weeds.”

Leon killed the engine and jumped out, ran around and helped Martha down. He walked to the door with her. “You know, we could fix this place up a little bit.” He looked up at the sagging roof over the porch. “This needs shoring up.” He bounced on his toes. “Porch is solid.” He walked across and looked around the side. “Chicken coop looks pretty sad.”

“Lemonade?”

“Sure, I’ll have some lemonade.”

They went into the cool interior and Leon sat in a kitchen chair while Martha filled two glasses.

“You know, it looked like you have enough money in your purse to fix the roof there by the porch and the chicken coop too. And the whole place needs painting. I’m looking for a job, and I’d sure like to help you out.”

Martha didn’t understand anything he said.

He moved a little closer to her and talked more slowly. “With money,” he pointed at her purse.

“Money, yes.”

“I fix roof and chicken house.”