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Patricia supplied all the proper cues—the “uh-huhs” and the gentle, reassuring rub of his arm—that kept Sam’s story rolling forth. She deviated into true interest only when he mentioned the visitor from back East.
    “The New York Times ? Here?”
    Sam sat up a bit and pressed his whiskered face against her bare shoulder. She liked that. “Yeah. You should have seen Swarthbeck. He was sweating like a hog after the fair. I guess she kind of got under his skin with her questions.”
    Swarthbeck. Patricia’s face twisted into a sour-milk frown. It wasn’t that she didn’t care for him; indeed, it went much deeper than garden-variety disregard. But the mayor was a useful idiot, she often reminded herself, a hedge against even greater ambition from her well-meaning husband. This Jamboree thing essentially came with the marriage, a duty passed down the family line that she knew was going to fall on Sam eventually. And she couldn’t very well begrudge the position on the school board, because what kind of troll opposes the education of kids? But as long as Swarthbeck was mayor—and indications were that he’d sooner die than give it up—Sam couldn’t be. As for the other aspirations, the county commission or maybe a seat in the statehouse, she’d exercised her nuclear option long ago: Sam could do that or be married to her, but he couldn’t do both. She wanted a husband, not a public figure.
    “What’s her interest?” Patricia asked.
    He kissed her ear. She rolled her shoulder to cover it up.
    “Oil,” he said. “Same old story, just a different way of going at it. She wants to know what the future looks like for a place like this.”
    “What did you tell her?”
    “I told her we’re in a lot of trouble.”
    She rolled toward him, face-to-face. “John isn’t going to like that.”
    “It’s true, though,” Sam said. “I get it. Everything’s hunky-dory to Swarthbeck. Money’s rolling in, times are good, we can replace the town pool, whatever. I’m looking at the bigger picture.”
    She touched his face. Good old earnest Samuel Einar Kelvig. Thirty-two years had a way of putting distance into their marriage, and in some significant ways even discontent. Other times, though, she remembered why she’d loved him in the first place, and why she’d stood by him, even when he was flat wrong or just entrenched and pigheaded. Because his heart was right.
    And about pigheaded . . . Her thoughts turned to their son and his impending arrival.
    “Kids’ll be here tomorrow,” she said.
    Sam propped himself on an elbow. “Samuel, too?”
    “He called me from the airport this morning.”
    “Where is he?”
    “Bismarck. I told him to drive the rest of the way tomorrow.”
    “And you know he’s there?”
    Patricia clucked her tongue, trying to chase her husband off the territory he was claiming. This had been Sam’s go-to on matters of their son ever since that disaster of a first visit with Samuel’s friend, and Samuel and Derek’s subsequent turnaround in the Minneapolis airport after she and Sam had bought them tickets and asked them, pretty please, to come back at Christmastime for another try. To Sam, that had been an unforgivable snub and a demonstration of the immaturity that still hung heavy from their son. Patricia had found a softer spot in her heart. The boys had gotten spooked, and she and her husband had done the spooking.
    “He said he’ll be here,” she said.
    “OK. Good. Glad to hear it. He bringing anybody?”
    “He didn’t say.”
    “Well, we’ll roll with it, I guess.”
    Patricia exhaled. She couldn’t say this was promising, but among all the reactions Sam might have conjured, it was on the safe side. “Denise and Randy and the kids will be here in time for supper in the park,” she said. “Randy’s got a dentist appointment in the morning.”
    “OK.”
    Sam rolled away from her, prepping his pillow for the coming slumber. She reached for his