Bob Harbin’s coffin is a flashy silver-and-chrome affair with dark blue satin lining and outer panels studded with brushed chrome medallions. I imagine it’s going to draw some criticism. People in Jarrett Creek are close with a dollar and don’t care much for show.

Jack is fitted out in a jacket that swallows his thin frame. His wheelchair is positioned near the coffin for the visitation. A couple of his veteran friends sit in the pew near him. The pungent smell of whiskey floats to me as I bend to speak to Jack. “Your daddy looks good. They did a real fine job with him.”

“Yes, sir. Lurleen told me it looks like Daddy could get up out of the coffin and walk out of here.”

I pat him on the shoulder and tell him I’ll see him at the funeral tomorrow. I only stay twenty minutes before I head off for my weekly date. Ever since my next-door neighbor, Jenny Sandstone, and I made our peace after she saved my art collection from arson, we get together once a week over a bottle of wine. Jenny is a lawyer, and likes taking a break from her work. We stick to gossip and complaints.

Sitting at Jenny’s kitchen table over what Jenny claims is a pricey bottle of Pinot Noir, I tell her I’m troubled about what Jack Harbin is going to do now that Bob is gone. “You got any bright ideas? Jack would like to stay put here in Jarrett Creek, but I don’t know how he’s going to pay for that.”

“What happened to Jack’s mother?” Jenny is dressed in blue jeans and a white blouse. Her flame-red hair is tied back, with tendrils of it escaping like coiled wire. She’s a big woman, around six feet tall and buxom. Jenny made it clear from the get-go that she’s not in the market for a man, and that suits me fine. I’m happy to have the occasional company of a smart woman who isn’t interested in taking over my wife’s position.

I tell her about Marybeth, Jack’s mother. “She lives over in Bryan–College Station. She visits every now and then, but she has a hard time with what happened to Jack.”

Jenny frowns. “Seems like with his dad passing, she could step up.”

I shake my head. “You’d have to know Marybeth. It’s not that simple.”

“Whatever you say.” Jenny doesn’t have patience for self-indulgence. “Damn shame for a young man to suffer such grievous wounds.”

“You’ve got that right. He was a pistol when he was young. Best quarterback ever came out of Jarrett Creek High School.”

“You mean it would have been okay if he was only good at math?” Jenny can have a sharp tongue at times.

“You know I don’t mean that.”

“This town and its football!” She doesn’t have to elaborate—she has made it clear that she doesn’t share the town’s obsession with football. She sips her wine. “Only time I’ve ever seen Jack is down at the café. Hard to imagine him as an athlete.”

“He was, though. He could flat-out throw a ball.”

“Why didn’t he play college ball? Why enlist in the army?”

“Jack and Woody Patterson signed up together. Both of them were after the same girl. That probably had something to do with it. Showing off for her.”

“How many times does that tale get told?” Jenny laughs her big laugh and settles back in her chair. “Small town boys and their flirty little girls.”

The phrase makes me smile. “Taylor was flirty all right. Those two boys hovered around her like bees around honey. She was partial to the two of them, but she was queen of the school, and everybody loved her.”

“Yeah, I knew a few girls like that in high school,” Jenny says dryly. “They made the rest of us miserable.”

“I believe Taylor was different. Sure, she was pretty and full of piss and vinegar, and smart, too. But Jeanne said all the girls liked her.”

“I’d have to see that to believe it. Not casting doubt on your sainted wife, you understand.”

I grin. Jenny’s the only person with the nerve to poke fun at me about Jeanne. It’s been good for me. “Well, you may be right. How am I to know?”

“How did Jeanne know so much about these girls?”

“I’m going to get us some cheese and crackers and I’ll tell you about it,” I say. Jenny has an aversion to all things involved with the kitchen, so I’m more familiar with her kitchen than she is. I bring the snacks to the table and sit back down. “We found out we weren’t going to have children, so Jeanne decided to go to work at the school. She also substitute taught and chaperoned afterschool activities. The girls loved her.” I stop for a minute, lost in ghosts of teenagers giggling in the kitchen with Jeanne, and the way her eyes sparkled when they confided in her. “Taylor was her favorite, though.”

“I don’t recall meeting Taylor. What happened? Did she leave town for the bright lights and big city and the boys were stuck in the army? That sounds about as smart as most small-town Texas boys.”

I’m surprised Jenny doesn’t know the story. But she grew up in Bobtail, the county seat, and only moved to Jarrett Creek when she found out we needed a lawyer.

“Taylor was set to go off to college in Dallas, but when Woody got rejected by the army, Taylor ended up staying here to marry him.”

She frowns. “Is it the same Woody Patterson who lives out east of town?”

“One and the same.”

“He came into the office a while back to get something notarized. I thought his wife’s name was Laurel.”

“That’s right. Woody and Taylor didn’t even last a year before they called it quits. They divorced right after Jack came back so torn up. Taylor went off to college and now she’s married and living in Dallas.”

Jenny crosses her long legs out in front of her. She shakes her head. “The way people’s lives can turn. Gives you pause.”