There was...something...in the way she said it, and Virgil's attention sharpened. She couldn't have been much more than twenty, so she was too young to have been alive when the war he'd served in started, but he'd seen that wise expression before. She grew up too fast. It was a random thought, one that disappeared before he'd even really realized he'd had it.

"He was my age, only a coupla years older. I guess I feel a little bit like the Lord drew straws about who to take and picked him instead of me."

He watched her cigarette be extinguished, the sparks dying out against the concrete step, and the smell of flowers wafted past again. Was that carnations? The petal on her blouse caught his eye. He resisted the urge to pluck it off.

"You got another smoke?"