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She held Aht She ain’t yours She ain’t yours and never will be You leave or I’ the sheriff, I swear

-Don’t you doit That’s just what I’h the house, taking his things, tossing them back into the cardboard cartons he’d used to carry theht it right then, how strange it was that he didn’t even have a proper suitcase? She sat at the kitchen table holding A off the ain

But then she heard the front door swing open, and his heavy footsteps on the porch He went in and out awhile, carrying the boxes, leaving the front door open so cold air spilled through the house Finally he ca little patches of it waffled to the floor with the soles of his boots

-Fine Fine You want me to leave? You watch me He took the bottle of Old Crow fro, didn’t even look at him

-So that’s how it is Fine You mind I have one for the road?

Which hen Jeanette reached out and swatted his glass across the kitchen, s ball with a paddle She knew she was going to do this for about half a second before she did, knowing it wasn’t the best idea she’d ever had, but by then it was too late The glass hit the ith a hollow thud and fell to the floor, unbroken She closed her eyes, holding A ould co on the floor see in the roo off him like waves of heat

-You just see what the world has in store for you, Jeanette You remember I said that

Then his footsteps carried hione

She paid the oil man what she could and turned the thermostat down to fifty, totrip we’re on, she said as she stuffed the little girl’s hands into ed a hat onto her head There now, it’s not so cold, not really It’s like an adventure They slept together under a pile of old quilts, the rooed the air over their faces She took a job at night, cleaning up at the high school, leaving Ahbor lady, but when the woo into the hospital, Jeanette had to leave Amy alone She explained to Amy what to do: stay in bed, don’t answer the door, just close your eyes and I’ll be home before you know it She’dout the door, then stride quickly down the snow-crusted drive to where she’d parked her car, away fro over

But then shesomeone about this, another woman on the work crehen the two of them had stepped out for a s at all and didn’t want to spend the arettes helped her stay awake, and without a s to look forward to, just more toilets to scrub and halls to be mopped She told the woman, whose naet in trouble leaving Amy alone like that, but of course that’s just what Alice did; she went straight to the superintendent, who fired Jeanette on the spot Leaving a child like that ain’t right, he told her in his office by the boilers, a rooer than ten feet square with a dentedout and a calendar on the wall that wasn’t even the right year; the air was always so hot and close in there Jeanette could barely breathe He said, You count your lucky stars I’ the county on you She wondered when she’d beco He’d been nice enough to her until then, and maybe she could have made him understand the situation, that without theshe didn’t knohat she’d do, but she was too tired to find the words She took her last check and drove hoh school when it was already six years old and falling apart so fast she could practically see the nuts and bolts bouncing on the pavement in her rearview mirror; and when she stopped at the Quick Mart to buy a pack of Capris and then the engine wouldn’t start up again, she started to cry She couldn’tfor half an hour

The problehty-three dollars at Sears, but by then she’d missed a week of work and lost her job at the Box, too She had just enough rocery sacks and the cartons Bill had left behind

No one ever knehat became of them The house sat e fruit When spring came, the water poured fro nobody was paying the bill, sent a couple of men to turn it off The mice moved in, and when an upstairs as broken in a summer thunderstorm, the ss; they built their nests in the bedroom where Jeanette and Amy had slept in the cold, and soon the house was filled with the sound and sht shift at a gas station, A on the sofa in the back roo It was su the washroo was just aaway For a time they stayed with a friend of Jeanette’s in Rochester, a girl she’d known in school who’d gone up there for a nursing degree; Jeanette took a jobfloors at the same hospital where the friend worked, but the pay was just e, and the friend’s apartment was too small for them to stay; she moved into a motel, but there was no one to look after Amy, the friend couldn’t do it and didn’t know anyone who could, and they ended up living in the Kia again It was September; already a chill was in the air The radio spoke all day of war She drove south, getting as far as Meood

The man who picked theuessed, fro a story about who broke the la her up for a second before he spoke My nauessed he was fifty, but she wasn’t a good judge of these things He had a well-triht dark suit, like a funeral director While he drove he kept glancing at A hi Jeanette questions about herself, where she was going, the kinds of things she liked to do, what had brought her to the Great State of Tennessee The car reminded her of Bill Reynolds’s Grand Prix, only nicer With the s closed you could barely hear anything outside, and the seats were so soft she felt like she was sitting in a dish of ice crea asleep By the ti to happen It seemed inevitable They were near the airport; the land was flat, like Iowa, and in the twilight she could see the lights of the planes circling the field, allery