Kevin Dean was nodding, agreeing with her. He said, “You’re right,” and took a notebook out of his raincoat and flipped through pages saying, “Walter was quite a bit older than you, wasn’t he?”

Honey watched him sink into her velvety beige sofa. “Your raincoat isn’t wet, is it?”

“No, it’s nice out for a change.”

“Have you talked to Walter?”

“We look in on him every now and then.”

“You’re wondering why I married him, aren’t you?”

“It crossed my mind, yeah.”

“Being fourteen years older,” Honey said, “doesn’t mean he wasn’t fun. Walter would show me a political cartoon in his Nazi magazine, the Illustrierter Beobachter, sent from Munich he got a month later. He’d tell me in English what the cartoon was about and we’d have a good laugh over it.”

She waited while Kevin Dean decided how to take what she said. “So you got along with him.”

“Walter Schoen was the most boring man I’ve ever met in my life,” Honey said. “You’re gonna have to pick up on when I’m kidding. You know Walter and I weren’t married in the Church. A Wayne County judge performed the ceremony in his chambers. On a Wednesday. Have you ever heard of anyone getting married on Wednesday? I’m saving the church wedding for the real thing.”

“You’re engaged?”

“Not yet.”

“But you’re seeing someone.”

“I thought you wanted to talk about Walter. What if I asked if you’re married?”

Having fun with him. She could tell he knew what she was doing and said no, he wasn’t married or planning to anytime soon. Honey wanted to call him by his first name but pictured a guy named Kevin as a blond-haired kid with a big grin. Kevin Dean had a crop of wild brown hair Honey believed he combed in the morning and forgot about the rest of the day. She knew he packed a gun but couldn’t tell where he wore it. She wondered if she should call him Dean, and heard lines in her memory, It was Din! Din! Din! You ’eathen, where the mischief ’ave you been? Left there from a ninth-grade elocution contest. And saw Dean in the sofa waiting for her to say something.