Absentmindedly, she noticed her cigarette had burnt close to her fingers. She stubbed it out, stared for a moment at the darkened yellow nicotine stain that ran along the inside of her index and middle fingers, and then lit up a fresh one. She wouldn’t be smoking three packs a day if she didn’t have to suffer such a fool of a husband! Nineteen years old when she got involved with him. How could she have known any better? Only nineteen years old… just barely out of high school…

Back then the Durkins were mostly a mystery to her. This odd little family that mostly kept to themselves. She remembered as a little girl the way her pa would seize up when he’d run into old man Durkin, almost as if he were in the presence of royalty. If they were in the diner, her pa would offer to buy him a beer or a sandwich. If they were in the street or the Country Store, her pa would ask if he could do anything for him. It never occurred to her as a child that her pa and old man Durkin were the same age. Old man Durkin seemed ancient in comparison, with his white hair and weather-beaten face and hunched-over appearance.

After high school she went to work as a waitress at the Main Street Diner. It was well into the following winter that Jack Durkin started to come in. He was the Caretaker of Lorne Field then and living alone at the Caretaker’s cabin, his old man having retired to Florida and his younger brother, Joe, disappearing to God knows where. Growing up, she never had much to do with either of the Durkin boys. Joe was closer to her in age, but he mostly kept to himself in school. Jack was six years older but, like his brother, didn’t talk much to other folk, and the few times she’d see him around town he walked about as if he carried a heavy weight strapped to his back.