“I’m just going to-” He stood and freed himself from the sport coat. He took a deep breath, then sat down, gathered up his pad and pen, took another large gulp of wine. “Tell me about her, will you?”

“Well, gosh,” said Karl Vonn. He shook his head and looked down, then back directly at Andy. “That I can’t really do, just sitting here with a boy and a notebook.”

“Why not, sir?”

“I think the words would burn your fingers.”

“All I want is a little truth.”

“That’s what truth does.”

Andy wrote the sentence, pen sliding off the edge of the little pad in his hurry.

“When was she born, Mr. Vonn? What year were you married? Was she happy then?”

He looked long and hard at Andy. Andy looked down from the black eyes to the tight lips and the big pores of the nose and the slightly receding and unhandsome chin of Karl Vonn.

“Born nineteen-seventeen. She wasn’t a happy woman. Never was, except for maybe our first year.”

“Why was that?” Andy asked. His heart was slowing down. He was getting a rhythm. Thought of J. J. Overholt always reminding him to get the why. The who and what and when and where, but don’t forget the why.

Vonn studied him again and Andy looked away again. “Andy, I’m not going to do this. Someday, you want to know about Alma, then you can come by and we can talk some. I know you want something for the paper so I’ll write it up when I get home and send it to you at the Times. Facts about her. All right?”

“All right, sir.” Andy felt hugely relieved but he knew that he had failed. He took a large gulp of wine for courage and consolation, set the glass back on the porch rail.

Karl Vonn stood and offered his hand and Andy slipped his pen into his pocket and shook it. “Shaking hands reminds me of something Alma told me,” said Vonn. “It was after I came back from the Pacific. We were talking about death because I’d seen some. She said she’d be ready to go when she couldn’t count her dead loved ones on two hands.”