"Thanks."
I turned on my heel and left him. It was dusk when I headed out Blackman. I found Butternut without difficulty. I found the blue house and parked in front.
As I went up the walk toward the front door the first light went on inside the house. I pushed the bell and she opened the door and looked out at me, the light behind her, child in her arms.
"Mrs. Rorick?"
"I'm Mrs. Rorick," she said. Her voice was soft and warm and pleasant.
"You were Cindy Kirschner then. I was a friend of Timmy Warden in prison camp."
She hesitated for a moment and then said, "Won't you come in a minute."
When I was inside and she had turned toward the light I could see her better. The teeth had been fixed. Her face was fuller. She was still a colorless woman with heavy glasses, but now there was a pride about her, a confidence that had been lacking in the picture I had seen. Another child sat on a small tricycle and gave me a wide-eyed stare. Both children looked very much like her. Mrs. Rorick did not ask me to sit down.
"How well did you know Timmy, Mrs. Rorick?"
"I don't think he ever knew I was alive."