"Clem and Mrs. Miniver might live in any one of the homes," Barbara said, reminded of the movie. "Many even have rose gardens."

Stephen brought the jeep to a stop in front of a green grocer's shop on a cobblestone street just inside the village and asked for the Marlow Stables. Getting directions, he drove them farther along the river and into the countryside beyond the village.

A narrow dirt road soon took them to a small farm where a few horses grazed in a meadow. A woman who might have been someone's grandmother rented them two horses. Before long, the Morgans were saddled and bridled, and Barbara and Stephen were riding them up a trail toward some hills.

If there was a war going on, while they rode as afternoon shadows began to fall over the trail, neither was aware of it. That was somewhere in the far past of yesterday, or even the distant future of tomorrow.

After they rode almost in silence again for an hour, Stephen asked, "Would now be a good time to talk to you?"

She turned her mount off the trail and headed him at a walk toward some shade trees beside the river. They dismounted and, sitting on the grass under the trees, Stephen told her about his marriage.

"My wife and I met when we were seniors at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. We married right after graduation. While I was working on a master's degree in history, intending to teach, we had a son. When he was two years old, he was killed in an auto accident. It wasn't my wife's fault, but she was driving him to our doctor's for a bad cough. It was winter and the roads were icy. She lost control of the wheel and hit a tree."

It was terrible, and reminded Barbara of how Gail had died, only this had not been a hit-and-run accident.

"She had not been drinking, but police thought she had been," Stephen continued. "She had been on some medication for her own cold. Apparently she had an allergic relation to it that made her jittery while she was driving.

"Anyway, to make a long and painful story short, she never recovered from the loss of our son, and blamed herself for his death. She didn't take to drinking, but while under psychiatric care she became addicted to some of the tranquilizing medication she was given. That, together with the guilt she couldn't rid herself of, and maybe other things in her physical or mental health, led to her having a massive stroke. She's been in a nursing home ever since."




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