Free Unremarried Widow by Artis Henderson Page B

the man behind the counter said.
    He laughed a dry, old man’s laugh.
    â€œYou in the military?” he asked Miles.
    â€œYes, sir.”
    â€œThought so. Always can tell by the hair.”
    He leaned back and propped his hands on the wooden countertop.
    â€œUsed to be in the military myself.”
    I worked my way around the stand while the man talked to Miles about the Army, bases they both knew, tours overseas. I put a jar of honey on the counter beside a pound of tomatoes. The man poked at the keys of a large cash register while he talked, and Miles pulled bills from his wallet and passed them across the counter.
    â€œYou all take care,” the man said as we walked back to the car, and to Miles: “Watch out for yourself over there.”
    â€œI will,” Miles said.
    The tires kicked up dust as we pulled back onto the asphalt and the low hum of the road worked its way through the undercarriage.
    â€œAre you going to sell vegetables out of the back of your pickup when you get done with the Army?”
    Miles laughed.
    â€œNah,” he said. “I think I’ll be a teacher. Maybe coach football.”
    I looked through the windshield and nodded thoughtfully.
    â€œThey have this Troops to Teachers program,” he said. “The Army’ll pay for you to go back to college and get your degree. When you’re done, you teach in a public school somewhere.”
    â€œThat sounds all right,” I said.
    Miles looked at me. “Yeah?”
    I took his hand and held it over the console.
    â€œYeah.”
    He drove for a few minutes without speaking, then asked, “How about you? What do you want to do when this Army business is over?”
    I shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t know.”
    Miles squeezed my hand.
    â€œSeriously,” he said. “What do you want?”
    â€œAnything?”
    â€œAnything.”
    â€œI want to be a writer.”
    Miles held the steering wheel and I could feel him considering.
    â€œWhat would you write? Books?”
    â€œBooks, articles—I don’t know. I’d like to travel too. To write from overseas.”
    Miles was quiet for a time. Finally he said, “I like that idea.”
    â€œYou do?”
    â€œIt feels right.”
    I smiled to myself and watched the road wind through the hills. Anything seemed possible in that land bare of everything but rye grass and barbed wire, and it was easy to imagine a future where our plans would come to pass. We followed the dashed line dividing theasphalt until the road spit us out at the foot of a rise where a stoplight blinked. Miles slowed and I pointed to a hand-lettered sign in the grass.
    â€œâ€Šâ€˜House for Sale,’ ” I read. “Want to give it a try?”
    Miles followed my finger to the sign, to the path that turned off the main highway, and to the low hills beyond.
    â€œLet’s do it,” he said.
    He put on his blinker and we watched for cardboard arrows planted in the ground.
    â€œThis it?” he said in front of a leaning mailbox.
    I craned my neck to read the sign staked into the ground.
    â€œI think so.”
    The driveway sloped upward to a small house at the top of the hill. I say house loosely. It was a trailer. A double-wide, but still. Pale grasshoppers skittered from beneath my feet as I stepped out of the car and a breeze combed through the knee-high weeds. The property was nothing special—open space and untamed grass buffeted by wind and sun—but it possessed a certain quality that brought to mind the word homestead. For a brief moment we let ourselves believe in the possibility of a settled life. Miles looked toward the base of the property and the road we drove in on. His sunglasses hid his eyes, but I guessed what he was thinking. I was thinking the same.
    â€œWe could live here,” he said.
    I surveyed the property, nodding. “We could.”
    On the front porch I pressed my face against