“This town’s full of widows, and she acts like she’s the only one.”

Ruth Andersen and Deborah Lee Franck stand across the street, but the wind in Southport carries conversations. The words encrust you along with the sand and salt from the riverbanks, and you can never rid your skin of them.

I am not the only widow. I am the only walking corpse. My dear John, curse him, curse him, my love, made me love him more than anyone should make another love. Hence when he fell at Fort Fisher last January under the gallant command of Major James Reilly in this interminable war between our own states, he had my soul in his hands. Now heaven is barred to me, because John took my soul with him and left whatever I am now in this blasted husk of a body that refuses to die.

It is a balmy day for late winter, so Mr. Miller has propped open the door to his store with a burlap bag of grain. Miss Margaret – we call her such because she is the oldest widow - sits on the bag and pleads with him.

“I am asking you to pay just a sack of flour for it, Mr. Miller. That will hold me until my daughter brings me some supplies.”

“Miss Margaret,” Mr. Miller crosses his arms and gives me a slight nod, “Why aren’t you livin’ with her in Wilmington to begin with? Jed wouldn’t have wanted you to try and run that farm yourself. You already owe me more than you can pay with one small crop of corn. And this thing here is in such bad shape it isn’t worth my time of day, let alone a sack of flour.”

He jerks his chin at a headboard leaning up against the counter. At a glance, I see that at one time it was part of a fine pine bed, but the veneer is blistered with water damage. A deep crack runs horizontally below a carved wooden garden of graceful leafy vines and gardenias that blanket the top scalloping. A labor of love, the type of thing my John liked to make when he wasn’t working on the practical things and repairs people needed.

“I will buy the bed, Margaret.” I start at the sound of my voice. I barely speak anymore, and my voice tends to surprise me when I hear it.

Margaret turns her eyes on me. I am struck by how far they recede into her skull, as if they examine me from the deepest part of her mind.

“Mrs. Vernon, are you sure?” Mr. Miller glances dubiously at the bed. “Wood’s probably rotted.”

“Nevertheless, I want it, Mr. Miller.” I turn and hand Miss Margaret two dollars from my reticule. “Next time you need food, Miss Margaret, or any help with your crops, come to me.” Why don’t these men understand? Our hearts are like seeds, and we plant them in the homes they build for us. We cannot leave them.

Mr. Miller shakes his head and goes to help Mr. Wilkins, who came in while we were speaking. I go to the bed and reach out to touch it.

Margaret’s gnarled fingers descend on my wrist and draw my hand from the bloated wood to her breast. “Bless you, Mavis,” she says, but she says it with the strength of a brave soldier rescued from a bayonet, not the mewlish simpering of a rescued kitten. Those strange eyes burn into mine, and I know she has the light to see the empty space in my body where the soul used to be. I pull away.

“You need this bed,” she rasps. “And it needs you.”