“You’ll last.”

The sun dropped and the dry grass went gold and then amber and then thin.

“The fence is mended, Claire,” I said.

“The land is back in your name.”

“I know.”

“Say it once so I hear it.”

“It’s back in my name.” She put her hand flat on the arm of the rocker and I put mine over it, and we sat that way while the light went off the pasture.

She drove in before dark and I stood in the yard until the tail lights turned at the road.

Then I walked back to the barn door and stood where I have stood most evenings of my life, and the sun lay flat on the dry grass of the south pasture, sixty acres of it, and the wire was holding.

A quiet man is still a father.