"That's Calvin's truck. Yes." Mrs. Pruitt folded her hands on the table. Her knuckles were swollen with arthritis, and she wore a thin gold wedding band that had worn almost through on one side. "Drink your coffee, Nora."
"I can't."
"I know. Drink it anyway. It's something to do with your hands."
Nora drank it. It was cold and bitter. The scanner hissed.
"Fifty-one years," said Mrs. Pruitt. "That's how long I was married to a fireman. Fifty-one years of this kitchen and this radio, or the one in our own kitchen on Laurel Hill. In the early days we didn't even have radios. We had the whistle. I'd hear it from the house and count the blasts and know where he was going and then I'd sit and wait until I heard his car come up the hill. Sometimes it was an hour. Sometimes it was all night." She looked down at her hands. "The night of Brandt's, he came home at four in the morning and sat on the back steps in the snow and wouldn't come in. I went out and sat with him. He said, 'Edie, I have to go tell Anne Haverty.' And I said, 'I'm coming with you.' And I did."
"I remember," Nora said. "I didn't, until last night. But I do."
"You were on the stairs in a white nightgown. You had your hand over your mouth." Mrs. Pruitt reached across the table and put her good hand over Nora's. "I'm sorry, dear. I'm sorry you had to remember."