Finally I couldn’t take it. I went to the cupboard and pulled the last jar of peaches I knew Lizbeth kept stored there. No doubt it was being saved for something special - that there would be special hell to pay in the morning. But if marriage is anything, I thought, it is a matter of bargaining chips. Don’t want people to eat your canned peaches, wife of mine? Then don’t make them sleep in the barn. Come the morning argument, I could bring up how rude Lizbeth was and we would at least break even. My argument would be solid as limestone. I was almost out the door when I saw Lizbeth’s satin shawl on a hook. An idea struck me.

I picked up Hute’s magic plate and spread the peaches out there. I went and got the last bit of bread from the day and broke it into pieces. These pieces I arranged around the edge of the plate, so that it almost resembled a birthday dish we once bought for Clemmie at Doocey’s. I threw the satin shawl on top, like a waiter in a fancy restaurant might cover a dish. The juice leaked through in wet spots and I smiled. I walked outside.

Then I stopped.

I don’t know what they had been up to, but Hute and Klara weren’t to the barn yet. It was a perfect moon out and I was lucky at that. The whole night, and the rest of my life to now, might never have happened if it weren’t for that perfect and bright moon. Because they were not that close together, because they didn’t appear to be walking in sync, because I had them pegged for friendly at best. But I saw Klara’s little finger, just a slight sliver of black against the paleness, wrapped in Hute’s fist. I stopped and went quiet.

If man might ever make a painting or picture that moves, they should make something of this. Her wide body and duck-swap steps. Hute’s braid hanging down and swishing out over the silhouette of his humped shoulders. There was something too familiar about it to be strange. There was something too familiar about it for me to be shocked. The whole scene competed for a title more natural than the big moon itself, the soil risen to pace about.

I walked back to the door and sat on the steps. I pulled the satin shawl off the peaches and got the pail. I cleaned the satin in fresh rainwater and hung it to dry on the hook by the door. Then I waited. I just waited. Waiting felt an odd but welcome thing. Crickets sounded and a firefly shone and somewhere way out a dog barked and then a coyote howled and I waited.

Until enough time had gone by.