“It looks great.”

“You’re just being polite, but I appreciate it,” she replied. “You should have seen the place when I moved in. It was kind of like the barn, you know? We needed a new roof, but it’s funnyno one ever thinks of roofs when they’re imagining what to remodel. It’s one of those things that everyone expects a house to have but never thinks might one day need replacing. Almost everything we’ve done falls into that category. Heat pumps, thermal windows, fixing the termite damage… there were a lot of long days.” She wore a dreamy expression on her face. “We did most of the work ourselves. Like with the kitchen here. I know we need new cabinets and flooring, but when we moved in, there were puddles in the living room and bedrooms every time it rained. What were we supposed to do? We had to prioritize, and one of the first things we did was to tear all the old shingles from the roof. It must have been a hundred degrees and I’m up there with a shovel, scraping shingles off, getting blisters. But… it just felt right, you know? Two young people starting out in the world, working together and repairing their home? There was such a sense of… togetherness about it. It was the same thing when we did the floor in the living room. It must have taken a couple of weeks to sand it down and get it level again. We stained it and added a layer of varnish, and when we finally walked across it, it felt like we’d laid the foundation for the rest of our lives.”

“You make it sound almost romantic.”

“It was, in a way,” she agreed. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “But lately it’s not so romantic. Now, it’s just getting old.”

I laughed unexpectedly, then coughed and found myself reaching for a glass that wasn’t there.

She pushed back from her chair. “Let me get you some water,” she said. She filled a glass from the faucet and placed it before me. As I drank, I could feel her watching me.

“What?” I asked.

“I just can’t get over how different you look.”

“Me?” I found it hard to believe.

“Yeah, you,” she insisted. “You’re… older somehow.”

“I am older.”

“I know, but it’s not that. It’s your eyes. They’re… more serious than they used to be. Like they’ve seen things they shouldn’t have. Weary, somehow.”

To this, I said nothing, but when she saw my expression, she shook her head, looking embarrassed. “I shouldn’t have said that. I can only imagine what you’ve been through lately.”

I ate another bite of stew, thinking about her comment. “Actually I left Iraq in early 2004,” I said. “I’ve been in Germany ever since. Only a small part of the army is ever there at any one time, and we rotate through. I’ll probably end up going back, but I don’t know when. Hopefully things will have calmed down by then.”

“Weren’t you supposed to be out by now?”

“I reupped again,” I said. “There wasn’t any reason not to.”

We both knew the reason why, and she nodded. “How long now?”

“I’m in until 2007.”

“And then?”

“I’m not sure. I might stay in for a few more years. Or maybe I’ll go to college. Who knows—I might even pick up a degree in special education. I’ve heard great things about the field.”

Her smile was strangely sad, and for a while, neither of us said anything. “How long have you been married?” I asked.

She shifted in her seat. “It’ll be two years next November.”

“Were you married here?”

“As if I had a choice.” She rolled her eyes. “My mom was really into the whole perfect wedding thing. I know I’m their only daughter, but in hindsight, I would have been just as happy with something a lot smaller. A hundred guests would have been perfect.”

“You consider that small?”

“Compared with what we ended up with? Yeah. There weren’t enough seats in the church for everyone, and my dad keeps reminding me that he’ll be paying it off for years. He’s just teasing, of course. Half the guests were friends of my parents, but I guess that’s what you get when you get married in your hometown. Everyone from the mailman to the barber gets an invitation.”

“But you’re glad to be back home?”

“It’s comfortable here. My parents are close by, and I need that, especially now.”

She didn’t elaborate, content to let her comment stand. I wondered about that—and a hundred other things—as I rose from the table and brought my plate to the sink. After rinsing it, I heard her call out behind me.

“Just leave it there. I haven’t unloaded the dishwasher yet. I’ll get it later. Do you want anything else, though? My mom left a couple of pies on the counter.”

“How about a glass of milk?” I said. As she started to rise, I added, “I can get it. Just point me to the glasses.”

“In the cupboard by the sink.”

I pulled a glass from the shelf and went to the refrigerator. Milk was on the top shelf; on the shelves below were at least a dozen Tupperware containers filled with food. I poured a glass and returned to the table.

“What’s going on, Savannah?”

With my words, she came back to me. “What do you mean?”

“Your husband,” I said.

“What about him?”

“When can I meet him?”

Instead of answering, Savannah rose from the table with her wineglass. She poured the remains into the sink, then retrieved a coffee cup and a box of tea.

“You’ve already met him,” she said, turning around. She squared her shoulders. “It’s Tim.”

I could hear the spoon tapping against the cup as Savannah sat across from me again.

“How much of this do you want to hear?” she murmured, staring into her teacup.

“All of it,” I said. I leaned back in my chair. “Or none of it. I’m not sure yet.”

She snorted. “I guess that makes sense.”

I brought my hands together. “When did it start?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I know that sounds crazy, but it didn’t happen like you probably think. It wasn’t as if either of us planned it.” She set her spoon on the table. “But to give some kind of answer, I guess it started in early 2002.”

A few months after I’d reupped, I realized. Six months before my father had his first heart attack and right around the time I noticed that her letters to me had begun to change.

“You know we’ve been friends. Even though he was a graduate student, we ended up having a couple of classes in the same building during my last year in college, and afterwards, we’d have coffee or end up studying together. It’s not like we dated, or even held hands. Tim knew I was in love with you… but he was there, you know? He listened when I talked about how much I missed you and how hard it was to be apart. And it was hard. I thought you’d be home by then.”

When she looked up, her eyes were filled with… What? Regret? I couldn’t tell.

“Anyway, we spent a lot of time together, and he was good at consoling me whenever I got down. He’d always remind me that you’d be back on leave before I knew it, and I can’t tell you how much I wanted to see you again. And then your dad got sick. I know you had to be with him—I would never have forgiven you if you hadn’t stayed by his side—but it wasn’t what we needed. I know how selfish that sounds, and I hate myself for even thinking it. It just felt like fate was conspiring against us.”

She put her spoon in the tea and stirred again, collecting her thoughts.

“That fall, right after I finished up with all my classes and moved back home to work at the developmental evaluation center here in town, Tim’s parents were in a horrible accident. They were driving back from Asheville when they lost control of their car and swerved into oncoming traffic on the highway. A semi ended up hitting them. The driver of the truck wasn’t hurt, but both of Tim’s parents died on impact. Tim had to quit school—he was trying to get his PhD—so he could come back here to take care of Alan.” She paused. “It was awful for Tim. Not only was he trying to come to terms with the loss—he adored his parents—but Alan was inconsolable. He screamed all the time, and he began pulling out his hair. The only one who could stop him from hurting himself was Tim, but it took all the energy Tim had. I guess that’s when I first started coming over here. You know, to help out.”

When I frowned, she added, “This was Tim’s parents’ house. Where Tim and Alan grew up.”

As soon as she said it, the memory came back. Of course it was Tim’s—she’d once told me that Tim lived on the ranch next to hers.

“We just ended up consoling each other. I tried to help him, and he tried to help me, and we both tried to help Alan. And little by little, I guess, we began to fall in love.”

For the first time, she met my eyes.

“I know you want to be angry with Tim or me. Probably both of us. And I guess we deserve it. But you don’t know what it was like back then. So much was going on—it was just so emotional all the time. I felt guilty about what was happening, Tim felt guilty. But after a while, it just began to feel like we were a couple already. Tim started working at the same developmental evaluation center where I did and then decided that he wanted to start a weekend ranch program for autistic kids. His parents always wanted him to do that, so I signed on to work on the ranch, too. After that, we were together almost all the time. Setting up the ranch gave us both something to focus on, and it helped Alan, too. He loves horses, and there was so much to do that he gradually got used to the fact that his parents weren’t around. It’s like we were all leaning on each other…. He proposed later that year.”

When she stopped, I turned away, trying to digest her words. We sat in silence for a while, each of us wrestling with our thoughts.