Though it remained too early to plant, it was not too early to pull the weeds, turn over the soil, and cover it with black plastic to “cook.” In years past he would have taken to the task with vigor. In years past he would have looked forward to it. In years past he didn’t have a beautiful, twenty-eight-year-old woman living with him. He looked across the field to the house he had rebuilt from the foundation up. After the fire that destroyed the four-room caretaker’s shack that he had lived in for thirty years, Jenkins had debated whether to rebuild at all. The ten-acre parcel wasn’t exactly the happy home of his youth. The property had largely been his escape from the world, and likely would have remained so had Joe Branick not sent Alex to deliver a file Jenkins long believed had been destroyed. Just seeing the package after so many years had taken his breath away. “Where did you get this?” “I told you. Joe Branick gave it to me—” “How did you know him?” “How?”
