She’d lit a lantern before venturing down an unstable set of steps. The cellar was musty-smelling, but not as damp as one would expect. The dirt floor was well-packed and firm. Cobwebs clung to the ceiling, and a few castoff articles had been abandoned there, but otherwise the space was remarkably unlittered. It attached the house to the limestone hill. The far wall was solid rock, the edges of it sealed with a clay-like matter.

That evening she’d told Irv about her discovery. “Did you know it was there?”

“Landlord mentioned it, but he didn’t take me down there.”

Nothing more had been said about it.

Day by day, the house had become more livable. Eventually Laurel had completed all the projects she had planned for herself and had begun nagging Irv to finish the list of undertakings she’d assigned to him.

This night, as she was clearing the table after their meal, she asked him for the third time to repair an electric light fixture in the ceiling of the central hallway. She said, “If I need the bathroom during the night, I have to feel my way.”

“You could carry down a lamp.”

“And you could fix the electric light.”

“Can’t tonight. I’ve got something else to do.”

Her impatience boiled over. She shook her handwritten list at him. “If I could do these things myself, I would. I can’t reach the ceiling, even with a ladder. I tried.”

“You got up on that rickety stepladder? It’s a wonder you didn’t fall and break your neck.”

“Well, I didn’t. Don’t change the subject.”

He ran a hand over his bald pate. “I’m keeping food on the table by repairing other people’s light fixtures, Laurel. Work is a blessing, and in my whole life I’ve never backed down from it, but I’ve got more than I can handle right now, and I’m tuckered out of an evening.”

She piled their dishes in the sink and turned on the taps, muttering, “Not too tuckered out to leave and stay gone for hours on end.”

“What was that?”

She turned off the water and faced him. “I hear you sneaking out three or four nights a week, Irv. Where do you go?” When he remained stubbornly silent, she pressed on. “Keeping an eye out for Mr. Hutton is an excuse that no longer holds.”

“It should,” he retorted. “They haven’t found nary a trace of that woman.”

“They didn’t find nary a trace of evidence against him, either.”

Irv gave a grunt of distaste.

Immediately after her encounter with Thatcher Hutton on the street, she had regretted having told him the circumstances of Pearl’s death.

Even Irv, who’d had that one crying jag following the burial, avoided talking about it with her. Perhaps he sensed that her sorrow was too raw, too personal to be shared.

Which was why she hated herself for exposing it to Mr. Hutton. Now he would look at her with pity, when she didn’t want him looking at her at all.

Each of their chance meetings, the last one in particular, had left her discomfited. On the surface, they spoke as courteous strangers, their dialogue commonplace and harmless. But it seemed as though they were actually communicating in an unspoken language which he understood, but which escaped her.

She couldn’t fault his behavior or criticize his manners. He was just too observant for her to feel comfortable around him. When he looked at her, she feared he was detecting more about her than she was willing to reveal.

Fortunately, there would be few, if any, opportunities for them to cross paths. Her last sight of him might very well be of his walking away, the straps of his braces forming a large letter Y tapering from his shoulders and down his lengthy spine, his walk the slightly bowlegged saunter of a man who had spent most of his waking hours astride a saddle.

That retreating image of him was scandalously stirring. She conjured it with irritating frequency, and it always brought with it an ache that was paradoxically pleasurable. Averse to acknowledging that forbidden sensation for what it was, she always forced it from her mind.

As now when it had distracted her from finishing this squabble with her headstrong father-in-law.

“I’m not going to argue with you about Mr. Hutton, Irv. In fact, I’m not going to argue with you at all.” She turned back to the sink and braced herself against the rim of it. “I’m tired, too.”

“Tired, hell. You’re exhausted. You tear around here every day like your hair was on fire, paintin’ this, scrubbin’ that, wearin’ yourself to a frazzle.”

“Yes. I do.” Feeling tears welling in her eyes, she kept her back to him and began to wash the dishes with ruthless efficiency.

He sighed. “Where’d you leave that damn ladder?”

An hour later, with her holding the ladder steady for him, he twisted a new bulb into the repaired fixture, flooding the hallway with light. “Leave the ladder here,” he said as he climbed down. “I’ll take it out in the morning.”

“Thank you.” He waved off her thanks, but she touched his arm to keep him from dismissing her. It was important to her that he knew how genuine her gratitude was. “I apologize for being short-tempered, Irv. It’s not you I’m mad at. It’s—”

“Life. I know. I’m sorta put out with it myself.” His smile was empathetic. “I’ll get around to those other chores, Laurel. I promise. But I do have something else to do tonight.”

He left and didn’t return until the wee hours.

* * *

Only a few days after their spat over his mysterious nighttime excursions, Laurel learned of something else he’d been keeping from her: a money shortage.

Because she shopped in Hancock’s store so frequently, she’d come to know the head cashier by name. Mr. Hamel was always chatty and friendly. Today, when she placed the items she wished to purchase on the counter, he looked askance, stammered a greeting, then hastily excused himself.

At least two minutes went by while other customers ready to check out stacked up behind her. She became hotly self-conscious of their malcontent over the delay she was causing.

Mr. Hamel returned, followed by another of the store employees, who took over the register, while he drew Laurel aside. He wore an agonized expression and spoke in an undertone.

“I’m terribly sorry, Mrs. Plummer, but Mr. Hancock refuses to extend further credit until your father-in-law brings his account current. It’s months in arrears.”