Well, let’s be fair,
I’ve worked on the earth,
pushing an electric mower
over a puny patch of grass.

But toil, oh the toil!
I toil here at this desk
beside a chugging laser printer,
choking on hot toner and
the scorch of halogen desk lamps.

I’ve sweated, I’ve sworn,
beneath this scorching sun,
salt stinging my eyes
as it drips from my brow,

but only on Saturdays
before the trip to Home Depot,
back in my chair with a beer
and a remote control
in time for the football games.

Look at my hands,
weathered and worn,
scarred in one place
from a battle royal
with a stuck stapler,
soft as a baby’s cheek
and neatly groomed.

A man’s hands.

Connor! Pulled pork sandwich!

Masters of the market tote capacious bags and baskets,
women stroll past in drum-tight yoga pants,
some alluringly fit, pudenda proudly displayed,
others straining the limits of fabric and fashion,
too much bacon for the pan to handle.

Food truck diners wilt in the shimmering asphalt heat,
glance plaintively over shoulders for a merciful cloud,
devour with plastic fork and knife their paper plates full of
Navajo fry bread, lamb curry, grilled gruyere cheese sandwiches,
their ankles menaced all the while
by swooping gangs of jittery pigeons,
pathetic pale posers, imitations of wild birds.
The cinnamon-skinned woman calls out an order:

Jamie! Rack of ribs with slaw!

A woman in the front row knitting,
her eyes on her needles,
she’ll rush the podium at the end of the poet’s set
and swear she was listening to every word.

Slobbering dogs drag their owners,
ranging liberally on retractable cables,
sniffing for morsels of greasy jetsam
at the feet of the seated diners.
The woman with skin of cinnamon calls out this order:

Katrina! Hot links and saucy beans!

Teenagers dragging skateboards by their noses
cross in front of the speakers and smirk.
You’ll be back, the poet thinks, if not today then next week,
when your friends aren’t here to think you’re not cool,
because you’re not so different in your angst and
your carefully unkempt hair and studiously shabby clothes
from any of us studied cynics at the microphone.
The cinnamon song sings out for response:

Joseph! Brisket platter with a side of sauce!

Some shoppers halt, hesitate, frozen midstep,
unsure whether to walk in front of the speakers
—is that rude?—and startled thus into presence,
hear poetry read aloud,
perhaps for the first time in their adult lives,
if only by accident and only for a moment.

Others stride brashly, unapologetically,
into the space before the poet,
oblivious to the amplified voice
as anything more than white noise.
They stop in front of the podium,
turn and shout to their friends
Let’s get some tacos and sit under one of these umbrellas!

Plaid-shirted hipsters
in houndstooth-checked porkpies
push strollers filled with flowers and
babies and baguettes
and smile sweetly in passing
at aging tie-dyed hippies
whose gray heads nod
in time to the rhyme.

Sunflowers big as a baby’s head
and stems of gladiolas
burst like fireworks from the
hands of beaming young girls.

And there in a puddle of illusory shade,
beyond the tight circle of the poet’s close friends,
a beautiful couple takes respite from the heat,
leans each upon the other, kisses with languor.

And how is the poet to pay any mind to the poem,
when this heartaching beauty fills his head like a song?

I roll away and squint in the dark for the time. 4:12.

Yeah? I say. She wants more, but my head is thick. Can you tell me later? When the sun’s up?

She flops back down on the bed. She’s holding her body real still, her muscles tensed. She’s ready for a fight. I don’t have the heat for it.

Baby, I say, I gotta sleep. If I don’t sleep it’s gonna be hell at work.

Fine, she whispers.

It’s not fine, but I’m happy to take her at her word.

She hasn’t been right since her daddy died. They weren’t even close. In fact, she hated him. But his dying did a number on her. Messed with her head.

I come home from work and I’m beat. Where all day I’ve been climbing stairs, climbing scaffolds, climbing ladders. And talking all the time. Keeping the guys sorted out, stopping the rooks from chopping their king studs too short, from punching holes in drywall with their sloppy hammering, from cutting off their fucking fingers or shooting nails into their feet. Always moving, always watching, always talking.

I walk in the apartment and she’s sitting there at the table, a stack of books open in front of her, the whole place dark except for the one hanging light over the kitchen table, and right away she starts in asking me questions.

Do you think I should have stood up to him? She doesn’t even look up. Just starts in.

Who? I ask. I set my lunch box on the counter, then my keys and my wallet. I pull off my jacket and hang it on the hook next to the door.

Daddy, she says.

I don’t know, Callie. What are all these books?

Library. Look. It says maybe I have PTSD. She pulls a book out of the pile and a whole bunch of them topple. She ignores them, starts flipping through the one in her hand, finds the page she wants, plunks it on the table and spins it around where I can see it.

See, she says, jabbing at the book with an angry finger. Victims of psychological abuse can suffer PTSD just like the ones with physical stuff.

PTSD like Iraq vets?

Yeah. Same thing.

I’m thinking I just want a shower and some dinner. Maybe a beer. I’m not much of a drinker, but a couple of beers after work gets the dust out of my throat. Anyway, I try to be a good boyfriend. I go to the sink, splash some water on my face and take my time drying off, sit down at the table, unlace my boots.

Nothing that happened is your fault, Callie.

She points to another one of the books in her stack. This woman says we have to own our responsibility. She says maybe I’m complicit.

I don’t know what complicit means, I say. But I think she’s got her head up her ass. Sometimes things just happen to us, and we don’t have any part in it. Earthquakes. Lightning. Cougar attacks. I’m trying to get a laugh out of her or a smile. From where I sit, I don’t see anything in the kitchen that suggests there’s any dinner in the oven or even anything planned, and I’d like to move things that direction.

This is important, Jesse. You’re not validating my feelings.

I am. I know it’s important. I just think that maybe you’re spending too much time in those books trying to find problems…

See! That’s what I mean. You’re dismissing my feelings.

I am not. I’m just trying to help you see that this isn’t on you. I’m watching her face, gauging whether she’s going to blow, but the whole time I can’t stop thinking how gorgeous she is when she’s worked up like this. I hate myself for thinking it. I know it’s sexist or something. But she is. More alive, like there’s a fire inside her.

I start lacing my boots back up. You want burgers? I say. I’ll go get us some food.

Fine. She’s reading again. I’ve disappeared from her awareness.

I go back to the counter and slip my wallet and keys into my pockets. On the way to the door I lean over and kiss the top of her head. She doesn’t say anything, doesn’t look up from the book. I get my coat and go on out, leaving her sitting in that cone of light, head bent low to her book.

I’m squeezing my eyes shut to keep the dirt out, but I can hear a car coming so I have to look to see if it’s her. So I hold my hands over my face like if I’m crying but just to keep the dirt out, and I open my fingers a little and I open my eyes a little and I look down the street but it’s a truck not her so I close them again.

It’s not cold but the wind is starting to make it colder and I’m a little afraid because I don’t have a coat on or a rain coat or anything and I’ve been waiting a long time.

She’s going to get me right after work she said so I rode the bus here after school the city bus not the school bus because I don’t go on that one but I like to go to the library after school sometimes. I have a library card of my own. But the library closes at five so I have to wait out here on the steps for her and it’s been about an hour I think. And I can’t read because the dirt hurts my eyes, so I’m just listening.

Louder then softer. Then louder then softer. Every time it gets loud it gets more louder and I know it’s going to rain because I can smell it. Wet dirt. I don’t know why it smells like wet dirt when it’s going to rain and I don’t know why it doesn’t smell like that after the rain starts, but I know that smell.

A lightning bangs really close to me. I see the light everywhere through my eyelids and the boom is gigantic and it makes me jump. Then there’s another right after, then it’s really quiet with no wind or anything. I feel the air get cold on my arms and the hairs all stick up then I hear the rain. It’s just drops on the leaves, then more on the sidewalk close to me then a kind of rush sound from the sky and it starts pouring rain. I open my eyes finally and stand up and back up against the wall but the wind is still pushing rain to me and I’m getting wet and I’m starting to get cold.

This is not the first time she’s late to get me but it’s in a rainstorm and I’m really getting angry at her now. I could get on the bus but that’s 75 cents and I’d have to walk to the bus stop in the rain and she wouldn’t know where I am so I don’t. I just try to move around where the rain can’t get me as much and I’m watching down the street when I finally see the car coming and she pulls up and leans across to push open the door on my side and she yells to me Come on baby, get out of the rain and I run to the car holding the book under my shirt for dryness and jump in and shut the door.

She pushes my hair back with her hand and says, Oh, Gordie, you’re soaked baby, but I won’t look at her. I’m just looking at the wipers on the windshield and how the one on my side leaves a big streak down the middle that it won’t wipe. She’s still looking at me and she says I’m sorry, baby, something came up and I didn’t know it was gonna rain. But I know she forgot me.

Baby, she says again, are you crying? I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Gordie, you have to forgive me. You know I love you.

I’m shaking my head because I don’t want to talk to her and I want to stop crying and finally she sighs really loud and pulls the gear shift and we drive away.

When we get home it’s still raining and I get out and run up the stairs and take off my wet clothes and wrap up in a towel before she even gets there. I’m sitting on the edge of the tub trying to get warm and she comes in and sits on the toilet and she doesn’t try to hug me or anything because she knows I’m still mad because I didn’t talk the whole way home.

I’m looking down at the floor trying to see where all the same patterns are and I can tell she’s watching me even though I have the towel over my head and it hangs down in front where she can’t see me. Then I see that there’s water dripping on the floor and it’s because she’s wet too but she’s just sitting there saying nothing. After a while I get up and pull the other big towel off the bar and I put it over her head. She just sits there with a towel on her head and that’s kind of funny but I’m not saying anything. I don’t feel like it yet.

I put my hands on the towel and start to rub them around the way she does when I get out of the tub only now I pretty much dry my own hair but sometimes I still let her. She just lets me dry her hair for a while then she grabs on to me and pulls me into a hug and I’m kind of bent over with my legs pushing against the toilet and it’s uncomfortable but I let her hug me for a while and I pull the towel off her head and I smell her wet hair and I smell this other smell that she smells like sometimes.

Finally she lets go and I stand up and I still have the towel over my head and she says You look like a monk. I make a face at her and she says A monk in his underwear and that almost makes me crack up but I still don’t want to.

Why don’t you go put on your pajamas then come get your wet clothes and hang them over the tub and I’ll go make some dinner. You want tomato soup?

I nod because that’s perfect on a rainy day.

Yeah? Tomato soup?

I nod again.

With grilled cheese?

I pull the towel down off my head and wrap it around my shoulders. Yes, I say, with grilled cheese.

Oh, you’re talking again.

Maybe, I say.

I hope so, she says, and she smiles at me in that way that makes me sad for her sometimes.

I don’t want to sit around here listening to myself talk.

I nod at her. I’m trying not to talk to her.

I’m sick of listening to myself, you know?

Yeah, I say.

Yeah, she says back, soft. Then she lets out a big breath and stands up and goes out to the kitchen and I can hear her getting out the pans and opening the can of soup.

At the table I’m eating my sandwich and I can tell she’s looking at me again. I just keep eating because she’ll say it when she’s ready. Then she does.

You were scared, huh?

I stop eating and look at her. I’m sitting on the stool at the breakfast bar and she’s standing on the other side eating her soup like we usually do.

At the library. You were afraid I forgot you.

I shake my head.

Are you sure? You weren’t scared?

No, I say.

Good. She nods a little. Good. Because I would never forget you. You’re my main thing. You know that, right?

Yeah.

You don’t have to be afraid, Gordie. I’ll always take care of you. That’s one thing I can’t screw up.

I don’t know what to say, so I start eating my soup again.

You’re too important.

Okay, I say.

Okay.

I’m thinking was I scared and maybe I was a little but not for very long and I’ve been more scared before. And I guess she’s right I didn’t need to be scared. She never forgets me.

It was after 2 a.m. when Annie dropped Meredith in the parking lot at the base of the stairs that climbed to her second-story apartment.

Want me to wait? Annie asked, but Meredith shook her head no.

I’m good, she said, and she tilted her head back and touched her nose, first with her left index finger then with her right. Annie laughed. Yeah, you’re good, she said, but take it slow going up those stairs.

Meredith leaned in through the open window and kissed Annie on the cheek. Are you okay to drive home, foxy?

Both of them started to giggle then, recalling the 50ish man who’d driven past them in his Lincoln earlier that evening as they walked from Shorty’s to the Motherlode and had shouted FOX-Y! through his open window as though he were in a late seventies teen summer movie. For the rest of the night they’d called each other Foxy, and Annie had introduced herself as Foxy to a roughneck who’d bought them drinks and played a losing game of pool with Annie while Meredith heckled them both from a bar stool in the corner.

I’m fine, baby, Annie said, and touched her nose.

Meredith started up the stairs, then stopped and turned and watched Annie drive slowly across the parking lot and turn south on Paseo. As the sound of Annie’s car faded, Meredith could hear faint R&B drifting across the parking lot from the apartments opposite hers. Luis is still up, she thought. I could go smoke a little with him, but then she thought about the babysitter and remembered the hour and decided to go upstairs instead.

When she got inside she found the TV on, the sound down low, an old black-and-white movie that Meredith didn’t recognize throwing a dancing light over the dark living room. Bethanne, the fifteen-year-old from apartment 1326, lay asleep on her side on the couch, her head resting on her cell phone. On the floor at the base of the couch was a lumpy fleece blanket with an arm sticking out one side and some long blonde hair out the other. Meredith closed the door gently, turned the bolt, then softly walked the three steps across the carpet and bent to slide her arms under the back and legs of the sleeping boy, lifting him, blanket intact, and pulling him to her chest. He didn’t stir. She walked carefully, suddenly more aware of the effect on her balance that the evening’s drinking had caused.

Stepping into her bedroom, she felt her way to the bed and lowered the boy onto his back. She peeled back the blanket so she could see his sleeping face in the dim light. She smiled at the soundness of his sleep, then leaned down to kiss his forehead. I love you, baby, she whispered, and brushed his hair aside with the backs of her fingers. Then she stood up, kicked off her shoes, and lay down beside him, her arm over his chest, and she let the steady rhythm of his breathing guide her into sleep.

The next day was her day off so she’d planned to sleep late – had drunk the third shot of tequila knowing that she could sleep it off – but she’d forgotten to turn off her alarm clock and it started its buzzing at 6:25. It came to her as a fire alarm, pushing into the dense fog of her dreamless sleep, setting her unconscious mind to frantic work inventing a story to explain a fire alarm – she’s at work, the waiting room is full of people talking and reading magazines or staring at Oprah on the TV, then there’s the alarm and they’re all up rushing to the front door, pushing, and she knows she won’t get out and the phone starts to ring and as the panic overwhelms her and she begins to cry, the adrenaline pulls her from her torpor and she’s awake and she’s sick.

Sliding her arm from beneath Gordie, who had squirmed himself sideways in the bed, she rushed in the darkness toward the bathroom, tilting as she went, losing her balance and slamming her shoulder into the corner of her dresser, but arriving at the toilet before sickness overwhelmed her and vomit rushed up her throat. Stomach muscles tensed, her back arched, she leaned close over the toilet to make sure she didn’t miss and make a mess she’d have to clean up later. Her throat burned and she could taste the harsh metallic tinge of the tequila, and that made her wretch again. Her diaphragm spasmed twice more, and when she was sure she was empty she reached up and pulled on the flush lever, then slumped over against the cold wall of the bathroom.

A little after one she drove out of the parking lot and turned south to Main, then west past the lumberyard and the Goodwill, stop and go through downtown and its peculiar mix of traffic, F150 pickups with Navajo kids in the beds, Cadillacs striped with gold trim, municipal sedans, heavy oilfield trucks with Halliburton logos on their doors.

Clearing downtown she turned and climbed the hill past the back side of the airport, on her left the huge metal buildings like outsized trailer homes that housed industrial welding shops and oilfield equipment repair and heavy machinery, on her right the hill dropping away to the river, grown over with tumbleweeds turned dry and brown in the cool fall air. She drove too fast until she caught herself and slowed to a few over the limit. A mile up the hill she turned away from the river into a dingy tract development, tiny homes with dirt yards cluttered with broken bicycles and ruined sofas and Japanese cars on jackstands, weeds growing up through the open hoods from which the engines had been pulled. Everywhere the detritus of marginal lives, signs of minimal ambition ever unfulfilled.

She parked on the street behind a Toyota with dark tinted windows. She sat for minutes, looking out the passenger window at the front door of the house, her lips moving in silence. Abruptly she pulled the door lever, sprung from the seat and slammed the door shut, and pulling herself upright and forcing her shoulders back, she walked quickly to the door and knocked hard on it. The breeze had grown colder as the afternoon sky had clouded over, and she gathered the cloth of her jacket in her fists and wrapped her arms across her chest. She could hear the indistinguishable drone of daytime television from inside the house. She knocked again, longer and louder. The door opened an instant later.

The woman, a couple years older than Meredith, big across the hips and chest but with a thin face made severe by sunken cheeks, red dyed hair pushed haphazardly into a short-brimmed winter cap, stood rigid, half obscured by the partially opened door, arms crossed over her cotton sweatshirt. He’s not here. What do you want?

Do you have a check for me? Meredith tried to look past the woman into the house but the passage was blocked by the woman’s hulking form.

You drove out here just for that? Why ain’t you at work?

Can you just get my check? It’s two weeks late.

Seriously. Why you have to take our money? Get yourself a job.

I have a job, Sharla.

Why ain’t you there?

It’s my day off. Come on, Sharla, it’s cold. Can you get my check?

Just tell me this. What’s your right?

What?

What’s your right? Why do you get to take our money?

Meredith considered whether she had the stamina for this struggle, whether anything she could say would make a difference in the face of this malice. Finally she spoke, measuring her breath to keep her voice level. The judge says so.

The judge don’t know shit. You’re a crap mom.

Sharla, I don’t like coming over here. You don’t want me here. Her voice began to rise and she felt the will to prevent it begin to fail. Just get my check and I’ll leave.

Sharla shook her head slowly and twisted her mouth into something between a grin and a snarl. You’re a skank. She dropped her arms from her chest and began to swing the door closed. I’ll get your check if you’ll get your skank ass off my porch. The door clacked shut.

Meredith stepped down off the porch, telling herself it wasn’t to acquiesce but to put distance between herself and Sharla, for she felt the sting of blood in her cheeks and the knotted muscles in her jaw and feared she might lunge or strike at the woman. She stood in the patches of dry grass in the front yard below the bottom step for several minutes, her stomach tensed and her fists balled in her jacket pockets.

Finally the door opened and Sharla stepped onto the porch, the check in her hand. Meredith put a foot on the first step and Sharla raised the check high above her head. Uh uh. Don’t you come up on my porch. You want the check you can work for it. She flung the check out into the air above Meredith’s head, where the wind caught it and pushed it across the lawn and into a clump of drying yuccas that stood in a circle of crushed gravel in the neighbor’s yard.

Meredith watched the check land and flutter in the wind, then looked back at Sharla, who stood with a sickening grin frozen on her face. They stood this way for several seconds, neither of them speaking nor moving. Finally Meredith turned and walked quickly toward the check. Before she could get it in her hand it cut loose in the wind and pinwheeled farther down the street, Meredith in pursuit, her pace quickening to overtake it. From the porch behind her she could hear Sharla’s throaty laugh and she fought against the need to cry. Three houses down she finally pinned the check under her foot and stooped to pick it up. She tucked it in her pocket without looking at it and, head down, walked back up the street to her car.

She drove around the corner, out of sight of the house, never looking over to see if her antagonist still stood watching, then she slowed to a stop at the curb out of the way of traffic and turned off the motor. She pulled the check out of one pocket and her cigarettes from the other and sat there studying the check until she’d smoked one down to the filter and then another. Then she started the car and drove back down the hill to home, feeling colder than she remembered ever feeling.

Lee is making boards. Working his way through a stack of rough cut blanks of 4/4 lumber, he takes a jack plane to each, its long sole plate sliding over the surface of the maple as he bends into the task. Delicate curls of blonde wood snake up from the blade and pile atop the plane until their accumulated weight pulls them off and they tumble to the shop floor.

He doesn’t think when he’s making boards, at least not about the work. He works quickly but precisely, as only someone who has a long familiarity with a tool can do. The sound tells him if he’s moving against the grain or with it, though he rarely commits the error of moving against the grain, as he unconsciously gauges the grain direction when he picks up each blank to secure it in his bench vice. The length of the shavings tells him when he is done: If he can run the length of the blank in one continuous shaving, then the surface is flat and it’s time to flip the board. All this not thinking about making boards gives him time to think about other things. He wouldn’t call it thinking, though, these unsorted images. The thoughts just come and he lets them come. When he described this to April one afternoon, she said it’s like meditation. He wouldn’t call it that, either.

She’s on his mind today, April is, because she left his house early this morning, without waking him, and he woke up alone and disoriented. Not that she hasn’t done this before, she regularly goes in to work early and has to leave his home for hers to shower and get her work clothes on, but this morning it threw him off. He’d lain there in the accumulating light, hearing the Brimhall’s rooster announcing the dawn, and feeling the cold for the first time this fall. Her birthday is this weekend, and she wants to go dancing, maybe at Lacy’s Tavern, though he’s not a big fan of country dancing, or at the Wooden Nickel where there’s usually a live rock band every Saturday night, though he’s not a big fan of dancing there, either. Truth be told, he feels silly doing any kind of dancing, but it’s what she wants to do so he needs to figure it out. He’d be happy just going for dinner at Serrano’s or even something a little fancier, but Serrano’s in particular doesn’t feel like a special occasion, since they eat there a couple times a week.

He pauses to take off his jacket. It was cool in the shop when he started work this morning, and the air held smoke, but an hour of resawing and straightening and flattening lumber into boards has warmed him considerably. He hangs his jacket on a wooden peg that’s stuck into one of the exposed studs of the unfinished shop’s walls, then he swings open the barn doors. He pours a fresh cup of coffee from the thermos on his tool bench. It’s no more than 30 steps to the back door of his house, but he holds to work hours, only going in the house at lunch and at quitting time and to use the toilet, since the shop has no plumbing. He walks out the open barn doors with his coffee, stands sipping and looking out over his yard to the western horizon, where the Umcompahgre plateau falls away into the San Miguel river valley and, farther west, the Dolores river, the river of sorrows, he thinks, El Rio de Nuestra Señora de Dolores. Best fishing season is nearly done, but he thinks he might get out once more while they’re biting.

He looks at his watch. 8:30. He can have these boards jointed, drilled for dowels, glued up and clamped by lunch if he keeps his head down. Then he’ll have the afternoon to finish the cutting plan for the Perry’s corner cupboard, which they want in a Shaker style. Maybe even get to the lumberyard for materials before dinner. A loud drunken song tumbles from high in the spruce tree, and Lee takes a step, then another, until he can get a look at the source. Black head, black and white wings, rust orange breast. He’s seen it before but he doesn’t know it. He’ll try to remember to ask the park service guys next time he sees them. He never was good at naming birds, even when he worked in the park. He drains his cup, shakes it out over the grass, and goes back in the shop.

For some reason he can’t figure, Colleen is on his mind now. Maybe it was the birdsong that set him off, or maybe the feeling in the air, the combination of the temperature and the particular slant of afternoon autumn light and the smell of dry leaves on damp ground. Whatever it was, he’s thinking about her, and in particular he’s thinking about how she used to terrify him when she was behind the wheel. He’d usually try to drive wherever they were going, but she was strong-willed and liked to be in control, so more often than he liked he would end up in the passenger seat.

Early in their relationship he would try to coach her—don’t follow so close, try not to jam the gas pedal down every time you set off—but she’d just get mad and accuse him of doing the same things. After a couple of loud arguments and one full-blown fight when he made her stop the car and he got out and walked home, he decided the only thing he could do was buckle his seat belt, look out the side window so as to not see how close she came to rear-ending other cars or running red lights, and hope that when she did eventually crash the car he wouldn’t be in it with her. Just so somebody survives to take care of Meredith, he remembers thinking.

She never did crash it, though, he thinks. He picks up the plane and settles back into his work. Then the next unsorted thought arrives: And we lost her anyway.

Around 3 on Sunday afternoon, Meredith called Annie. Can you come over, Chica?

Oh…my…god! Annie stretched the three short words into twice as many syllables. Are you wasted?

What? No! Why do you say that?

Um, you never call me on Sunday. That’s Gordie time. You only call me Chica when you’re wasted. And you sound a little spacy. A lot spacy.

I just need to talk to you. Can you come over or not?

When Annie arrived she knocked and waited and knocked again. After three rounds of knocking she went back down the stairs and found the key that Meredith kept stashed under a smooth river rock in the sparse and scraggly landscaping under her bedroom window in case Gordie forgot his key. Which he never did, so Annie was the only one who ever used the hidden key. She unlocked the door and opened it a bit and called out. Merf? There was no answer and Annie knew that the apartment was small enough that even if Meredith were in the bathroom with the door closed, she’d hear Annie calling. She swung the door open and looked around before stepping inside.

She checked the bedroom and bathroom and had come back out to pull a diet soda from the refrigerator when she heard a key in the door. She watched from around the corner as Meredith pushed the door open with her foot, arms wrapped around a plastic basket full of laundry, then she sprung out and grabbed Meredith and kissed her on the cheek. Did I scare you?

I saw your car.

Damn it.

Why do you want to scare me, anyway? Meredith dropped the basket onto the floor in front of the sofa and sat down.

Don’t know. Annie turned away and picked her soda can off of the table and took a long drink. You scared me.

What? How?

You call me all suicidal and I rush over here and you don’t answer your door. I thought you swallowed pills or something.

Meredith smirked. I’m not suicidal, you freak. She picked a pair of Gordie’s jeans out of the basket and folded them. And you didn’t rush over here.

Annie feigned indignant, but walked over to sit down next to Meredith and started folding clothes. I had to take a shower. I did my step workout this morning and I was smelly. She sipped her soda. I was a little scared.

I’m sorry, baby. I wouldn’t leave you like that.

Good. Annie pulled a pile of laundry out of the basket and onto the sofa next to her and leaned back to get comfortable. So what’s up?

I’m pregnant.

Annie’s head jerked so fast that her ponytail whipped all the way around her head and slapped across her face. Shut up!

I am.

Oh god, Merf. Annie studied her friend’s face for a clue to what she was thinking, and she found it in the tensed muscles of Meredith’s jaw.

You’re not going to have it?

Meredith nodded. I want to have it.

You do? Are you sure?

I’m sure.

Annie pursed her lips and drew a long audible breath. I don’t know, Merf.

What can I do, Annie? What else can I do? Tears started down her cheeks, but she seemed composed. Gordie’s a great kid. She paused and thought about this. He’s a fucking unbelievably great kid. But it’s all I can do to earn enough to take care of him. And make the time to take care of him. I mean, he doesn’t need much, but just to spend time with him. And forget having a life. I barely ever get a minute just to relax. She laughed with a short sound that resembled choking, and held up a fistful of laundry. This—she shook the clothes in her hands for emphasis—is all the relaxing I get. And I only have one friend, because I don’t have time for any others.

Annie started to protest, to say that she was all the friend that Meredith needed, or that Meredith had lots of friends from work and from the club, but she didn’t bother. Instead she leaned in and lay her hand on Meredith’s arm to calm her, quiet her for a moment. Wait, she said, are you saying you do want to have it, or you don’t?

Meredith shook her head. I’m sorry. I know. I’m not making sense. I’ve been thinking a million miles an hour since I found out. I do want to have the baby. She paused. I have to. But I don’t think I can keep it.

Oh! Annie thought about this for a moment. Oh god, Meredith. That’s…

I know. It’s crazy.

Crazy? It’s fucking nuts. Annie grinned and Meredith started to giggle, sputtering laughs interrupted by sharp sounds of sucking in air, sobs or gasps. She picked up a sock from the pile and wiped her eyes.

I know, Annie, but jesus. Look at Gordie. That kids’s a goddamn miracle. I can’t see myself having an abortion, knowing how amazing that kid is. I can’t.

Oh god, yeah. I love your kid. But how are you going to do this? I mean, you know what it’s like to be pregnant. I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about, but you do. I can’t see how you can go through that and then give it up.

Meredith slumped sideways onto the pile of unfolded clothes. I know. She shook her head vigorously, burrowing under the laundry until her face was covered. She was quiet for some time, Annie softly stroking her legs. Suddenly Meredith flung her arms upward, hands balled tightly into fists, body tensed from neck to pointed toes, and screamed. Fuck! Then she slumped again, her face still covered, and Annie could hear her soft sobs.

Annie pulled her feet up under her on the couch, then lay down slowly, gently, next to her friend, one leg over Meredith’s outstretched legs, an arm over her softly heaving stomach, and tucked her head in next to the exposed side of Meredith’s neck. They lay this way for five minutes, ten minutes, until Annie felt a calm settle into Meredith’s body. Still she lay silently, her left hand moving almost imperceptibly slowly over Meredith’s stomach, making a circle with the light pressure of her palm.

When Meredith finally spoke, her voice again sounded deep and calm, full of the quiet confidence that Annie had always admired in her friend, whether she was talking to a cute guy in a bar or giving Annie advice on negotiating her rent. Annie, she said, and from the tone Annie knew she was being asked to accept something she wouldn’t want.

Yeah, baby, she whispered into Meredith’s neck.

I have to go away.

Annie felt a shudder travel from the small of her back to the base of her skull, and she was shaking her head in defiance even as she felt herself resigned to acceptance.

Why, Merf? Why not stay here where I can help you?

Meredith sighed, a long breath pulled in, held, and released slowly as she reached to pull the clothes away from her face. She turned and tilted her head until her forehead pressed against Annie’s. It’s Gordie. I can’t put him through this. Watching me get bigger and bigger, knowing that he’ll never get to see his new brother or sister. It’s cruel.

So what are you saying? Annie was trying not to cry, but her voice wavered. Meredith twisted from her back to her side, never moving her face from Annie’s. She wrapped an arm around Annie, pulling her close, and interlocked their folded legs.

Please don’t cry, sweetie. Please don’t.

I won’t. I’m not.

But Meredith could see the effort in her friend’s eyes.

I’m going to ask my dad to take Gordie, and I’ll go somewhere, Rosado maybe, until I have the kid.

I don’t get why you have to leave. If Gordie’s gone.

It’s not just Gordie. It’s everybody. I don’t want Luis to know. I don’t want them to know at work.

Nobody would care, Merf. It happens. People will get over it. And don’t you think Luis would want to know?

Probably, but I don’t want him to feel responsible. And he’s not the guy I want to be with, which is exactly what he would want if he knew.

He’s a sweet guy, though.

Yeah, the sweetest guy ever.  And he’d insist on doing the right thing – she gave the words a grand emphasis – but he’s not…

She dropped off, and Annie gave a small nod in acknowledgement. I know, she whispered.

Annie?

Yeah?

I love you, baby. I’m sorry I have to leave you. But I’ll be back. She saw the tears fill the corners of Annie’s eyes. She rolled forward and kissed Annie’s cheek, feeling it quiver.

Monday, a little after one, she walked across the parking lot and watched the mail lady sort the envelopes into the bank of mailboxes. She could see before she was even across the asphalt that the bin was still half full, so she zipped her hoodie to her chin, pulled a pack of cigarettes and lighter from her jacket pocket, lit a cigarette, and shifted into a patch of sun between the shadows of the two apartment buildings.

Thought you quit, said the woman, never taking her eyes from the stack of envelopes she held in her left hand.

Meredith took a long pull then exhaled noisily. I’m always quitting. Problem is I’m starting as much as I’m quitting.

Ain’t that the way? The woman shook her head as though the struggle were as much hers as it was the girl’s, and kept on slipping envelopes into boxes.

Meredith stepped over a few feet, staying out of the woman’s way but getting a line of sight into her mailbox—middle block, fourth row down, second from the left. Still empty.

How about you find me a check in there, lady?

You expecting one, or are you asking me to do some sort of magic?

Meredith moved back to her strip of sun. I’ve been expecting one for a while. Now I’m to the point of needing one.

Well, hon, I’ll do what I can. She picked up another bundle, snapped off the rubber band and dropped it into the bin, riffled the envelopes like a deck of cards, and went back to sorting them into boxes. She was at it another six or seven minutes, Meredith all the while smoking and hopping from one foot to the other to generate a little heat. When the woman finished she turned and gave a shrug. I’m sorry, miss girl. Looks like it ain’t your lucky day.

That much I already knew, Meredith said.

The woman pulled at the retractable lanyard that held her keys to her belt, flipped through them one by one until she found the matching key, and began closing and locking the big doors on the banks of boxes. Meredith turned, giving a half wave over her shoulder, and walked quickly back toward her apartment.

She jogged up the stairs and through the unlocked front door, grabbed her keys from the top of the breakfast bar, then turned and went right back out and down the stairs to her car. She drove out of the parking lot and turned south to Main, then west past the lumberyard and the Goodwill, stop and go through downtown and its peculiar mix of traffic, F150 pickups with Navajo kids in the beds, Cadillacs striped with gold trim, municipal sedans, heavy oilfield trucks with Halliburton logos on their doors. Passing the ornate marquee of the Zuni Theatre she wondered if there were anyone in this town who had seen a movie there. She couldn’t remember it ever being a movie house, though she knew it once had been. Now it stood empty and dark and ignored by everyone on the street.

Clearing downtown she turned and climbed the hill past the back side of the airport, on her left the huge metal buildings like outsized trailer homes that housed industrial welding shops and oilfield equipment repair and heavy machinery, on her right the hill dropping away to the river, grown over with tumbleweeds turned dry and brown in the cool fall air. She drove too fast until she caught herself and slowed to a few over the limit. A mile up the hill she turned away from the river into a dingy tract development, tiny homes with dirt yards cluttered with broken bicycles and ruined sofas and Japanese cars on jackstands, weeds growing up through the open hoods from which the engines had been pulled. Everywhere the detritus of marginal lives, signs of minimal ambition unfulfilled.

She parked on the street behind a dropped Toyota with dark tinted windows. She sat for minutes, looking out the passenger window at the front door of the house, her lips moving in silence. Abruptly she pulled the door lever, sprung from the seat and slammed the door shut, and pulling herself upright and forcing her shoulders back, she walked quickly to the door and knocked hard on it. The breeze had grown colder as the afternoon sky had clouded over, and she gathered the cloth of her jacket in her fists and wrapped her arms across her chest. She could hear the indistinct drone of daytime television from inside the house. She knocked again, longer and louder. The door opened an instant later.

The woman, a couple years older than Meredith, big across the hips and chest but with a thin face made severe by sunken cheeks, red dyed hair pushed haphazardly into a short-brimmed winter cap, stood rigid, half obscured by the partially opened door, arms crossed over her cotton sweatshirt. He’s not here, she said. What do you want? 

I need my check. Meredith tried to look past the woman into the house but the passage was blocked by the woman’s hulking form.

You drove out here just for that? Why ain’t you at work?

Can you just get my check? It’s two weeks late.

Seriously. Why you have to take our money? Get yourself a job.

I have a job, Sharla.

Why ain’t you there?

It’s my day off. Come on, Sharla, it’s cold. Can you get my check?

Just tell me this. What’s your right?

What?

What’s your right? Why do you get to take our money?

Meredith considered whether she had the stamina for this struggle, whether anything she could say would make a difference. Finally she spoke, measuring her breath to keep her voice level. The judge says so.

The judge don’t know shit. You’re a crap mom.

Sharla, I don’t like coming over here. You don’t want me here. Her voice began to rise and she felt her will to control it begin to fail. Just get my check and I’ll leave.

Sharla shook her head slowly and twisted her mouth into something between a grin and a snarl. You’re a skank. She dropped her arms from her chest and began to swing the door closed. I’ll get your check if you’ll get your skank ass off my porch. The door clacked shut.

Meredith stepped down off the porch, telling herself it wasn’t to acquiesce but to put distance between herself and Sharla. She felt the sting of blood in her cheeks and the knotted muscles in her jaw and feared she might lunge or strike at the woman. She stood in the patchy dry grass in the front yard below the bottom step for several minutes, her stomach tensed and fists balled in her jacket pockets.

Finally the door opened and Sharla stepped onto the porch, the check in her hand. Meredith put a foot on the first step and Sharla raised the check high above her head.

Unh unh, she said. Don’t you come up on my porch. You want the check you can work for it. She flung the check out into the air above Meredith’s head where the wind caught it and pushed it across the lawn and into a clump of drying yuccas that stood in a circle of crushed gravel in the neighbor’s yard.

Meredith watched the check land and flutter in the wind, then looked back at Sharla, who stood with a sickening grin frozen on her face. They stood this way for several seconds, neither of them speaking nor moving. Finally Meredith turned and walked quickly toward the check. Before she could get it in her hand it cut loose in the wind and pinwheeled farther down the street, Meredith in pursuit, her pace quickening to overtake it. From the porch behind her she could hear Sharla’s throaty laugh and she fought against the need to cry. Three houses down she finally pinned the check under her foot and stooped to pick it up. She tucked it in her pocket without looking and, head down, walked quickly back up the street to her car.

She drove around the corner out of sight of the house, never looking over to see if her antagonist still stood watching, then she slowed to a stop at the curb out of the way of traffic and turned off the motor. She pulled the check out of one pocket and her cigarettes from the other and sat there studying the check until she’d smoked one down to the filter and then another, then she started the car and drove back down the hill to home, feeling colder than she remembered ever feeling.

Today mom said she would get me after school, so I wait with this kid Joseph and this girl Renee from my class on the playground and we see who can swing the highest in the swings and jump out. Sometimes Mr Lucero the gym teacher will give us a basketball or a soccer ball when he sees us but he’s not here today so we just do the swings. Then Joseph and Renee have to go home so I sit on the sidewalk in front of my classroom and read a library book until she comes and then I’m really interested in the story and I don’t even see her drive up and she honks the horn. Just in time, because my butt was getting really cold on the cement.

I put my backpack in the back seat but I keep my book out in case and I climb in the car and right away I say You said you weren’t going to smoke around me.

I’m not she says. I’m not smoking.

You were. The whole car smells like it. That’s the same as smoking around me.

It’s not the same.

Almost.

Okay, I’m sorry, baby. I won’t smoke in the car, either. She pushes the gear and starts to go and then a car honks super loud and she slams on the brakes and she says Fuck real loud. She looks out the window as the car goes past and a mean-faced lady is shaking her fist and yelling something but we can’t hear her with all the windows up. Mom turns to me and says Sorry, buddy. Sorry about that.

What happened?

I didn’t see her coming up behind us and I pulled out in front of her.

So it was your fault?

Yes, it was my fault. I thought I looked, but maybe I didn’t. She looked this time in her mirror and started going again and we went the rest of the way home without saying anything. When we got there she got two bags of groceries from the back and I got my backpack and we went upstairs and I took off my coat and my backpack and she unloaded the groceries. I opened my backpack and took out a worksheet I got back today and I went back out and sat on my stool and I put the paper on the counter for her to look at and she opened a bag of pretzels and brought them over to me. What do you want to drink she says.

Do we have chocolate milk?

I can make chocolate milk.

Okay.

She sees the paper and looks at the score right away like she always does. 92! That’s terrific, buddy. I don’t remember this one…when did you work on this?

We had work time in class yesterday and it was easy so I finished it there.

If it was easy how come it’s not 100? She grinned at me. Then she went to the refrigerator and got the milk and then the Ovaltine from the cupboard.

I said on one of them I counted how many pie slices wrong and on one of them it was a trick because all of the others followed the same pattern but this one skipped.

Sounds like maybe you should slow down a little. And check your work after you’re done. She poured some milk in the glass and then two spoons of Ovaltine and she put the spoon in there and brought it to me to stir.

Yeah. I went fast because if I get done then Mr Hammond lets me walk around and help the other kids.

You like that, huh?

Yeah, it’s fun. They call me Mathman.

Really?

Yeah.

Are they teasing you?

No. It’s okay. I like it. I start stirring my milk and she starts looking at the worksheet. The spoon dings against the side of the glass when I stir and I start stirring faster and faster and I keep stirring and dinging even though it’s already done. Finally she notices.

Okay, okay! Are you going for the world record there? She holds out her hand and I give her the spoon and grin at her. She shakes her head a little and smiles back at me. Mathman, she says. I’m real proud of you, Gordie.

Thanks, I say. Are we gonna watch a movie? Usually when she picks me up from school we either walk to the park or we watch a movie and it’s kind of cold so I think it’s a movie.

We can watch a movie, but I need to tell you some stuff first.

Okay. I start thinking of if I cleaned my room or if I was supposed to take the trash down to the bin or something else.

I don’t want you to be scared, okay?

Okay. Right away I start feeling scared even though I don’t know what of.

I went to the doctor and…

When?

When you were at school.

Today?

Yes, today. That’s why I could pick you up after. She came around the breakfast bar and sat on the stool next to me and I turned on my stool to look at her. I tried to drink my chocolate milk but my throat felt choked like I was going to cry. I put it down on the counter.

I went to the doctor and there’s something that I need to do.

Okay. Did you do it?

I have to go somewhere to do it. I have to go to Rosado. And it takes a long time.

How long?

A few months.

So we have to move to Rosado?

Well, I do.

Not me?

It will be hard for me to take care of you, Gordie, so I think it would be better if you went to stay with grandpa.

Mom, what’s wrong? Are you really sick? Now I started to cry and I didn’t even try not to. Mom got up and she hugged me and she said it’s okay Gordie it really is come here and we went over to the couch and sat on it and she put her arm around me.

It’s not bad, Gordie, it’s really not.

Then why do you have to leave? And go to Rosado?

I just do, baby. It’s something I have to do. I know you maybe can’t understand, but believe me I wouldn’t want to be away from you if I didn’t have to.

What if something bad happens to you and I’m at grandpa’s and I don’t ever get to see you again?

That’s not going to happen.

How do you know? I was starting to cry really hard now and I couldn’t say anything very good and my nose was running like crazy. Mom got up and went and got a box of tissues and came back and started to wipe my nose and I took the tissue and I did it.

Grownups just know some things that kids don’t know, Gordie. Someday you’ll know things that you don’t know now. But you just have to trust me. This is the best way.

The doctor said?

No, the doctor just said I’m…then she stopped and she said The doctor told me what’s going on with me, but I decided that I should go to Rosado and you should go to grandpa’s. That’s my decision.

So you don’t have to?

Yes, I have to.

But the doctor didn’t tell you.

No.

So you don’t have to.

Yes I do. Not because the doctor told me to. Because it’s the best thing for me and for you.

Why is it the best thing for me?

Gordie, I told you. I wouldn’t be able to take care of you.

I can take care of myself. Mostly.

I know you can, buddy. Listen. Then she breathed a deep breath and sat for a long time and didn’t say anything. I wiped my nose again. I didn’t know what to do with the tissues. Listen, here’s the thing. I know you can take good care of yourself. But it’s kind of like me. I’ve been trying real hard to take care of you and take care of me. And I think I’ve done a pretty good job. I have.

I nodded at her because I think she has done a pretty good job.

But it could be better. I could do better. And to do better I have to make some changes.

What kind of changes?

Just things I need to do. Grownup things. And that’s why I have to go to Rosado.

Will you get some medicine in Rosado?

No.

Why not?

I don’t need medicine.

An operation?

No. It’s not that kind of…thing.

But you’ll get better.

Yes.

Will I get to come visit you?

I don’t know. I don’t think so.

For how long?

For a few months.

That’s a long time.

Yes, but you’ll be with grandpa and you’ll have fun.

Until Christmas?

Longer.

Until my birthday?

Longer. Probably until school is out.

Next summer.

Yes.

And I can’t see you that whole time? When I said this then mom started crying. She cried for a long time and she kept trying to stop crying but she couldn’t. I just kept on leaning against her and giving her tissues until finally she stopped crying and she breathed out real slow.

I know, she finally said. I really messed up this time.