I only stood there.

Marcus stepped between us, though neither of us had moved, and told Trish that she was not to approach the generator, the house, or the garage again.” Because she had been told to leave once and had returned anyway, he was giving her a formal trespass warning.

Laura walked the length of the drag mark one more time, photographing it from three angles and then photographed the cracked guard.

She took written statements from both of us, and Trish gave hers in a smaller voice than the one she had used with the dispatcher.

The deputies left a little before 9.

I stood in the yard for a long moment listening to the steady thrum of the generator and then I went inside where the house was warm and Rachel sat at the kitchen table with her hands wrapped around a mug.

She did not say anything.

She just reached out and squeezed my wrist.

The power came back at 10 6 in the morning and I shut the machine down and let it cool.

Two days later, after the roads had been plowed, I drove it to Pike Equipment and Supply.

Gerald met me at the loading door with a mug of coffee and an expression of quiet vindication.

He wheeled the machine into his service bay, unscrewed the cracked guard, and found one of the mounting brackets knocked slightly out of true by the force of being hauled across ice.

It was not a catastrophic injury, but it would have worked loose over time and failed at some inconvenient hour.

And Gerald wrote it up the carefully.

He listed the guard, the bracket, and the labor, signed and dated the inspection report, and gave me a copy.

While he worked, he told me something I had not known.

Trish had not merely asked about the generator that afternoon.

She had asked whether he could find another one and he had offered to call a supplier in the city.

She had said she was not going to drive to the city and she was not going to wait for a truck and that somebody would sell her one.

It explained why she had been so fierce when she saw the machine in my garage.

She had believed the last one was hers by right of walking in first and she had sat in that parking lot and watched me carry it away.

I did not ask Gerald to contact Trish.

He did it himself.

He called her and told her what the repair would cost and that the sheriff’s report already noted the damage had occurred during her handling of the unit.