Kyle, 1950

“The house in Loma Linda sat on three acres across the river from Carrolton proper, a low frame house with a porch along the front and a kitchen garden on the south side that Sophie had put in because it seemed like the kind of thing a wife ought to do. The garden was not a success. Sophie had her mother's eye for what should go where and her father's confidence that growing things would cooperate if you were reasonable with them. But the soil in Loma Linda was not the soil of La Conquistadora. The tomatoes came up small and hard and bitter. The squash developed a fungus that she could not seem to cure. By the end of the first summer Sophie had concluded that gardening was not among her gifts and that the three acres would be better used for something she actually knew about, which was horses. Joe Carpenter was a good husband. Sophie had known he would be, even before she married him. She had weighed his goodness against everything else she knew and felt and could not change. Good might be enough, she had decided. Enough might even become something more. In the year since their wedding Joe had done nothing to disappoint her. His love was steady and deep and uncomplicated, and he was perfectly willing to give more than he got back and be cheerful about it. He brought her coffee in the mornings. He asked about her day and listened to the answer. He was funny in a quiet, self-deprecating way that surprised her sometimes into real laughter, and when that happened she could see the light come into his face. The sound of Sophie laughing was probably the thing Joe loved most in the world. He would spend his whole life trying to make it happen again. Sophie was not unhappy. The house was nice, the town was pleasant, Joe's law practice was growing, and they had friends, other young couples who came over for barbecues and card games and evenings that were lively enough to fill the hours and ordinary enough to leave no mark. Sophie could manage all of it. She could cook dinner and set a table and hold up her end of a conversation about the price of feed and who was running for city council. She could do it well, because Sophie had always done everything well.”

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