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“Dad’s best friend and local handyman. He owns the supply store downtown.”

“Oh yeah, nice guy. Helluva selection.”

Owen had a hard time believing a man who owned a supply store would have trouble with a simple repair either, but he kept his mouth shut.

Alan headed down the path that led from the gate at the house to the barn, lugging the large belt over his shoulder. He was pretty damn adept despite his age. Farm life hadn’t been as hard on him as it had others.

Just the other day Owen had seen five signs up in town offering a helping hand if any of the farms needed it. It promised expertise, hard work ethic, and if needed, land to be leased for more crop yield. When Owen asked Alan about it at dinner, Alan explained to him that about 20 percent of farms in Elks Ridge didn’t make it year by year, that the struggling farmers faced two choices: sell or lease and get work elsewhere.

Neither sounded good to Owen.

They got down to the barn and Owen looked up at the shutter. It sat crooked, hanging by a thread, or rather one lone screw attached to a hinge. The window itself looked like there was a one-inch gap between it and the surrounding boards, leaving the impression it floated in mid-air, if not for the single pine slat affixed to the southeast corner of the glass pane. Otherwise a small pile of screws at the base of the barn looked like they’d been scattered by birds.

“Can’t get ’em to stay in to save my life. This thing’s been the bane of my existence for a year now. Don’t know if it’s got another winter in it.” Alan looked at the shutter like Ahab had at his great white whale. An insurmountable problem that he couldn’t back down from. Nor defeat.

“You tried putting the hinges a couple inches lower? They’re probably stripped,” Owen observed.

“Done that. Twice. Even moved the shutter. Replaced the siding around the window. Didn’t help.”

“Huh,” was all Owen had. He walked around it, taking the problem in, working it out in his mind like he’d done a thousand times before in his previous life. Now, though, for the life of him he couldn’t figure out what to do to get it to hang right. He fingered the hinge, pulled at it.

“Have you thought of—”

“Taking it off altogether? We have. But we use them in the winter to keep the heat in.”

“What about—”

“Replacing it with something new? We’d have to redo the siding on the barn to make it so anything else’ll work.” This time it was Brad who chimed in, again, cutting him off at the pass.

“So, you’ve really tried everything, huh?”

“We have. Hoping your fresh eyes’ll see something we haven’t. Because I won’t be the man who can run a farm but gets bested by a shutter.” Alan chuckled. Owen looked over at him, smiled too.

“That’d be embarrassing.”

“I’ll say. So, Sergeant, what do you see?” Warmth flooded Owen’s chest at the use of his old rank. It’d been a while since he’d been addressed with the reverence and respect his military rank afforded him. It might’ve embarrassed him from anyone else, but Alan understood what it meant.

“Well, Alan, not much of anything if I’m being honest. I think residing the barn sounds like a project for the spring, after the snow’s on its way out, but it doesn’t sound half bad. I mean, this guy’s done for in my opinion.”

Alan sighed, hands on his hips, head shaking in bewilderment and resignation. “Yeah, mine too.”

Owen bit the inside of his lip, not wanting to give up that easily, for Alan’s sake at least.

“Let me see what I can do, though.” Alan perked up. Brad smiled at Owen. It was hopeless, but Owen figured they needed to at least try to give the old man a win.

“Hmm,” he muttered under his breath, a sigh of his own escaping his pursed lips. “Can you hand me the Phillip’s head?” he asked Alan.

In a second, the screwdriver was in his hand. He fiddled with the hinge, for a moment thinking he’d done it. He’d added a longer screw, hopefully acting like a lever that would counterbalance the weight of the half-rotted board. It held. He’d only need to add back in the framing around the window and it was a done deal. Not too shabby, if he did say so himself.

He turned back to Alan, a wide smile on his face. Alan just smirked at him, his arms crossed. He nodded back to the barn. When Owen turned around, the shutter hung lopsided again.

He groaned. Alan just chucked mirthlessly.

Half a dozen more attempts, and he finally joined the other two men on a bench outside the barn, the three of them facing the setting sun. The sky was littered with pink and orange-tinted clouds, the normal blue background transformed to a light yellow. It would have been magical if not for the tilted slat of wood that gave them more hell than any lance corporal ever had.

Owen looked over at Alan and Brad. “It’s a shutter,” he told them, disbelief lining his voice. “A worn-out piece of wood.”

“Yup,” they echoed in unison.