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"I guess you heard" I tilt my head sideways at the phone
"Hard not to Doot physical"
The veterinarian shakes his head, and I slurpinto my office in an hour; I’ll drive you ho on"Thanks"
I hadn’t otten he wasn’t a patient or hardly even a friend
Williaet to the h I’m a little rusty and stall the Olds twice Bitsy offered to drive, but between the two of us, I’m more experienced She sits up front to offer advice
The car’s cozy, and when I ask about it, Katherine tells me, from the back, that the war new every day! It’s the first heated vehicle I’ve traveled in That’s her only comment The rest of the time, she just stares out thelike a woman without hope, and it saddens me
I recall another time a battered woman cah In the ht, Kay Dorsey pounded on our door "LetIt would have been about this time of year, still winter, and she had her baby wrapped up in a shawl and bruises all over her face Nora took her in a cab to the Woot a divorce Father O’Malley wouldn’t allow it Nora was madder than hell
And another time she was madder than hell
"I can’t live like this," Queen Nora announced one afternoon inthe Christht for fifty cents at the corner lot and has already eaten half a ru low It’s been years and Lizbeth is still wearing black, for Christ’s sake, and it’s Christ tinsel at the tree as if it were chicken feed--and she hated chickens
"How long is this going to go on? There were thirteen thousand battling the coal company troops at Blair Mountain How does she know anyone even sahat happened?
"There’s just no fun here any low! I can’t live like this, I tell you" She stands glaring at the roo the shiny tinsel, and Mrs Kelly’s face, white as snow "I tell you, I can’t live this way! It won’t do It’s no good All the life is sucked out ofback, I thinkfor an excuse Teeks later, Nora left with the novelist Jacqueline Lyons for San Francisco, and that was the end of her On Christo to Mass I watched theair Noere both s
Nora was right How do I know anyone even saw? But Ithe battle at Blair Mountain while trying to get two goons off him It was an accident, but that oneessential in o on, too ht of suicide, wanted not to feel the terrible grief and guilt any it Besides, now there are Moonlight and Buster, Sasha and Eht as well admit it She’d take my death personally, as if it were her fault
The dark sky echoes my mood Te pass deer on the way into town and I point them out It isn’t until we enter Liberty that I reach for Katherine in the backseat, squeeze her knee, and slon