porch-swing, peeling potatoes. Ben said, "Afternoon, Anna," and saw her pale bright eyes flicker up at him, and that scared smile touched her mouth for just a second; then she hunched her shoulders and kept on with the potatoes, like he wasn't even there.

Ben thought, It must be lonely to be that way—and he attracted her attention again, his voice a little louder: "Hope you're feeling fine, Anna."

Again the flicker of eyes. "Just fine, Ben, thanks," she said, almost in a whisper. "Peeling spuds."

"I see."

Her knife sped over a potato, removing a spiral of skin. She popped out an eye with a twist of the point. "Think Keith'll be back from the war today, Ben? It's been so long ... I hate to think o' my boy fighting out there so long. Will they let him come home soon, Ben?"

"They will, Anna. I think they will, real soon. Maybe tomorrow."

"Will they?"

"Sure."

Keith Kincaid was under one of those fist-sized rocks, out in the cemetery that wasn't a cemetery—next to his wife, June Hogan, and their four kids. But Anna Kincaid didn't know that. Since the bomb, Anna hadn't known much of anything except what the old people told her, and they told her only things that would make her as happy as she could be: that Keith was in the Army, and June was off with the kids having a nice time in Knoxville; and that they'd all be back home in a day or so.

Anna never wondered about that "day or so"—she didn't remember much from day to day. Joe Kincaid sometimes said that helped a little, as much as anything could. He could tell her the same nice things every day, and her eyes would light up all over again. He spent a lot of time with her, doing that. He was pretty good at it, too ... Joe Kincaid had been Doctor Joe before the bomb. He still doctored some, when he could, but he was almost out of supplies; and what with his patients being so old, he mostly just prayed for them.

In the kitchen, Susan had lunch ready and waiting—some chicken from last night, green beans, boiled potatoes and a salad from the tiny gardens the women tended off in the weedy ground and around the bases of trees where they wouldn't be seen.

On the way in Ben had noticed that the woodbox was about empty—he'd have to bring home another bag of charcoal from the "general store"—which was 

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