They talked, from time to time glancing into the graveyard. Tucker was waiting for Margery, Charlie realized. When she appeared, she was walking slowly. Her head was up but her attention was dragging, as though she were pulling part of herself left behind. She was nearly to them before she focused. "Hello, Tucker."
"Hello, Margery."
"Good to see you," she said. "It's been a while."
"Yep. Since the service, I guess." Tucker straightened. He seemed younger.
"Tucker lived up the road from us," she said to Charlie. "He made me the most marvelous rocking horse. I think that was the nicest present I ever got. When William—" She swallowed. "When—I'm sorry." She turned away. "William loved it too," she said in a low voice.
There wasn't anything to say. Margery gathered herself and turned back to them.
Tucker cleared his throat. "I was—thinking you might come over for a bite to eat, for old times sake." Charlie expected Margery to decline, but something in the old man's tone had caught her attention.
"Well, that's nice of you. You have time, don't you, Charlie?"
"Plenty of time." A few years earlier, she had shown him where she lived, not far from the cemetery. "Ride or walk?"
"Ride," Tucker said. "I'll just put this shovel in the shed."