“Thank you for replacing the outhouse.”

“Easier to start over than try to clean the old one. He’d made a goddamn mess.”

Softly she said, “He wasn’t right in his mind.”

He turned away from the stove and looked over at her. “Shell shock?”

“I suppose. A light had gone out inside him, and it never came back on. I thought he would get better as time passed. I tried to help him, but he wouldn’t even talk about it.”

Irv dragged one hand down his creased face. “He was like that after his mama died. Shut down, like. He ever tell you about that?”

“No.”

“TB got her. Derby was seven, eight. Had to watch her decline, then die. That’s tough on a kid.” He paused, lost in thought, then cleared his throat. “After she passed, I couldn’t earn a living and look after him at the same time. I had no choice but to put him in a home. For what it was, it was a nice place. Subsidized by the railroad. I’d go see him whenever I could, but…”

He raised his shoulders. “He never forgave me for leaving him. Soon as he was old enough, he went his own way. I’d hear from him off and on. Mostly off. But it seemed to me like he’d found himself again and was doing all right. Then the war came along. If it was as bad as they say, it’s a wonder any one of them who survived it haven’t done what he did.”

He heaved a sigh that invoked Laurel’s pity. The wretched memory of Derby’s death would stay with Irv until his own final breath.

“Can I help you there?” she asked.

“No thanks. I’m just making some gravy for that rabbit we didn’t eat last night. It’s almost ready.”

Pearl was sleeping peacefully on the mattress. She probably needed to be changed, but in the process, she would wake up. Right now, it was better for Laurel, as well as for the baby, that she remain asleep. Because Laurel needed time to think.

She was viewing her life as a spool of ribbon that had gotten away from her, rolling out of her reach, unwinding rapidly and haphazardly, and she was powerless to stop it.

She shivered, as much from despair as from the cold air that seeped through the cracks in the walls of the shack. She hadn’t removed her coat since she arrived. Shoving her hands deep into its pockets, she said, “Right before he…did it…Derby admitted that he hadn’t told you about me and Pearl.”

Irv set down the long spoon he was using and turned toward her. “He didn’t even tell me he’d survived the war.”

Derby and she had still been in a honeymoon haze when he had left for overseas. She would have gone crazy if she hadn’t received periodic letters from him. Usually they were filled with cryptic references to his misery, but at least she’d known that he was alive. Learning that Derby hadn’t extended his father that courtesy made her heartsick for the old man.

“That was terribly thoughtless of him.”

“I got one letter telling me he’d been drafted and was going to Europe to kill Huns. I moved around a lot for work, so he’d been long gone by the time that letter caught up with me.

“Armistice came and went without a word from him. I took that as a bad sign, but the military is supposed to let folks back home know when their loved one has fallen or is missing, right?

“So I went up to Camp Bowie, where he’d been stationed before shipping out. After a lot of rigamarole and sorting through red tape, I was told he’d made it back stateside. His last paycheck from the army had been mailed to a post office box in Sherman. I wrote to him there just to tell him where I’d lit in case he ever wanted to find me.”

He took in the rustic interior of the shack, as though seeing it from her perspective for the first time. She followed the track of his eyes. Cobwebs laced the rafters that were blackened from age and smoke. A cowhide that looked like it had mange was nailed to the north wall. She supposed that it wasn’t so much for decoration as to keep out the elements. The flue of the potbellied stove was piecemeal, forming a leaky and crooked outlet to the hole in the ceiling.

“Ain’t much,” he said.

Laurel didn’t detect any degree of humility or apology in that statement, and she couldn’t help but admire him for that.

He gave the simmering gravy a stir. “I didn’t hear anything from Derby until the telegram office sent a boy out here day before yesterday. All it said was that he was coming. Nothing more.”

Laurel dug at a crack in the dirt floor with the toe of her shoe. “There was no job, no work waiting for him, was there?”

He shifted his weight, redistributing it unevenly, placing more on the right side of his body. “There’s work around.”

“Of what kind?”

“Same as me.”

“Forgive me, Mr. Plummer, but—”

“Irv.”

“Irv. What kind of work do you do?”

“I was a railroad man. Over thirty years at it. Went all over, repairing tracks. That’s how I got the bum hip.” He patted his left leg joint. “Coupler backed into it. Didn’t stop me from working, though. Just made it harder.

“But I got old and tired, so I stopped railroading several years ago and settled into this place. Now I do odd jobs in and around town.” He looked over at her with something of a grin. “I guess you could say I’m a fix-it man.”

“Are there enough things around here that need fixing to keep you busy?” And solvent? She wanted to ask that, but didn’t.

“I’m stretched pretty thin, all right.” He set tin plates and cutlery on the small table, which was not much larger than a checkerboard. “How much had Derby told you about me? Not much good, I reckon.”

“He hadn’t told me anything except that you were still living, as far as he knew. He said the two of you weren’t close.”

He gave a sad nod. “Well, then at least that didn’t come as a shock to you.”

“What caused the rift?”

He pursed his lips thoughtfully, then said, “His mama died young.” He gave the gravy another stir. “What about you? Is your family up in North Texas?”

“Yes. My daddy and uncle grow cotton. Or did. The last three crops got ruined by the boll weevil.”

“You’ll want to notify your folks of this.”

She took a breath, wishing she could postpone this, but reasoned that he needed to know sooner rather than later. “We don’t speak.”