"I don't have to know your aches and pains. My daddy was in his fifties when he had me." Come on, Byerly, you aren't going to be shown up by a man who lived to be seventy-something, are you? It's always a good night when she can think of the dead with love rather than loneliness, and this is one of those nights. Her smile doesn't falter when she asks, "How old are you, anyway?"

She'd guessed closer to thirty than forty, but Byerly's the kind of man who's hard to be sure about.