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She wanted to pretend not to knohat he was talking about, to lie to hiain—this time with a confused smile—but she knew he saw the truth on her face, in her weary eyes In the years of his ily difficult to pretend there was a different future waiting for theht; Roy said lastskeletons Dallas’s face, always sharp, had grown hollow and gaunt The veins and sinews in his neck were like tree roots protruding just beneath the soil

Time had left its es in her y fros and too little care She was thirty-two, but looked nearly a decade older than that

“It’s hard,” she said softly

“Are you still taking those pills?”

“Hardly ever”

“You’re lying,” he said

She looked at hi hiet through it?”

He leaned back They rarely did this, rarely left the path of pretend and stepped onto the hard cement of reality “When I’m out in the yard, I find a place that is empty, and I stand there and close my eyes If I’m lucky, the noise will sound like hoof-beats”

“Renegade,” she said

“I reht”

Their eyes met; the memories were vibrant, electric “That was our first time”

“How do you get through it?”

Pills Booze She looked away, hoping he didn’t notice “Out on the porch, I have one of the wind chiave them to me and said that if I listened closely, I’d hear her voice in their sound And I did I do” She looked at hiain “Now I hear you, too I wait for the wind sometimes”

She fell silent That was the thing about memories; they were like downed electrical cables It was best to stand back

“Have you heard from Roy?” she asked