There were other women who gathered on Friday nights at the farm, all of them with children in the same age ranges as Bobby’s sisters. All of them w...re either war widows, or divorced from soldiers who were in the war. Bobby never gave it much thought. He heard Joe’s name brought up a lot, and those women did a lot of giggling and sighing whenever that happened. Bobby never gave that much thought either.On Bobby’s fifteenth birthday, Joe showed up, and said he was staying for a while. Bobby got. I went down to the hotel bar and Jane was already sitting at a table.I sat down at the table and my skirt rode up, a lot of leg was on show as she said, “you look up for it” and laughed.Immediately the waiter was at the table.I hadn’t seen him before, but he was similar to the rest.Black as coal, tall and skinny with a poorly fitting uniform, plus eyes on stalks as he devoured my legs.I ordered a white wine and he walked away, “haven’t seen him before” Jane commented.It was then I took notice. Will activated his blinker, then, after waiting for a semi-trailer to pass by, maneuvered into the shoulder next to the guardrail. He put the big, red fire truck into park.“Move your seat back all the way.”“Um, okay?”“Good,” she purred, disengaging first her seatbelt and then his as she leaned over into his seat. She braced herself with her hands on his legs. “Now just—I need you to hold my hair up. Gently! Try to keep it from getting all tangled. And away from my face! I’ll fix it in the. Why don’t you call your insurance agent?”John stripped off his parka and snow pants and handed them to the ever-surly Phoebe. “What, are the phones back?”“No, not yet,” replied Malcolm. “Phones and electricity are still out, I’m afraid. We keep a few cellulars around for emergencies, though. The towers have backup power supplies. Here, use this one,” he said reaching out and picking a small flip phone off the counter.From memory, John dialed his agent, needing two tries when he forgot the area.