We watch TV, Will with his head in my lap. I trace his flickering blue profile with my finger and bring up the notion of sooner rather than later.
        “I told you, honey, we're not ready for that,” he says with a jaw-creaking yawn.
        “Some of those farms we saw were dirt cheap.”
        “It still takes money. You gotta give it time.”
        I moan. “Our kids'll be ancient by then.”
        He sits up, dislodging my hand. “You're so damned impatient!”
        “I can't help it. Time is passing; they're getting older even as we speak. Will, what if we didn't have to wait?”
        “You've been talking to Todd,” he accuses.
        “And Marsha. We could sell our houses and pool what we make.”
        “You gotta be kidding.” He sits up and groans, rocking his head side to side. “Boy, you're like a dog with a bone. Once you get hold of an idea, you won't let go.”
        “What's the alternative? Stay here and be harassed all the time?”
        He heads for the stairs. I shut off the TV. “Wait for me.” He stops; I take his hand and we go on up.

        We scout every weekend. When Will has to work overtime, Todd is wheelman. Marsha usually stays home with the kids. Alone one overcast Saturday, Todd and I decide to call it a day. We've been viewing Appalachian properties for hours, one mean little house after another, rickety old barns stinking of animals and excrement and, in between, acres and acres of dirt, most of it strip-mined raw.
        We pass a hand-scrawled For Sale sign drooping from a sagging fence. I swing my head around. “Wait! I want a look.”
        He pulls over. On tiptoe, I grip the rusty wire. Peering down, way beyond the snow-crusted rocky slope on which we stand, I see a house starkly alone at the back of a deep hollow. Behind the house, a tangle of trees and scrub merge into gray-misted foothills. Like prehistoric beasts, a line of old car bodies hunkers alongside the scar of a creek-bed. A level field of chopped cornstalks across the way would be perfect to build on if it were cleared. As for privacy, the sole neighbor is a partially visible tarpaper shack a good distance away.
        Todd and I grin at each other and pump hands.

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