“I Told Her to Go Dance With Another Man — Her Comeback Left Me Standing There Like an Idiot”

She never called me on it. Just handed me sweet tea, warm cornbread, and let me stay a little longer every time.

We talked about everything and nothing. The hay. The creek. Her dad. The quiet that moves into a house after someone dies and never quite leaves. I told her the quiet gets loud if you let it. I didn’t tell her I leave a radio on at night for the same reason she does.

Even the town noticed before I did.

At the feed store, Martha — who’s basically the unofficial mayor of gossip — watched me load cattle cubes into my truck and said, not unkindly, “You’ve been spending a lot of time at the Whitfield place, Jack.”

“Fence needed work.”