She goes inside. A light comes on in a second-floor window. Through the thin curtain, her shadow moves across the room. She's there for a long time. The shadow passes back and forth, pauses near the corner of the room, and finally settles on the bed.
The light goes out.
I watch the dark window. Down the block, a dog barks twice and stops. A car passes on the next street over, its headlights sweeping across a row of houses before disappearing. The neighborhood settles into the heavy quiet that comes only in the deepest hours of winter nights.
I stay until the sky begins to lighten in the east. The cold deepens just before dawn, the air going brittle and still. I leave.
The farmhouse sits on a county road three miles outside of town. No traffic after dark. The windows are covered with heavyblack fabric nailed over the frames. Inside, the kitchen has a table, a chair, and a telephone. The rest of the house is empty.
I stop at the table. The phone sits there, its cord curled against the wood. I haven't used it in months.
I go to the interior room, the one with no windows, and sit on the floor with my back against the wall and go still. Behind my closed eyes, there's the warmth of her shoulder against my chest. It's the only warm thing in the house. The only warm thing I've felt in longer than I can remember.
I stay with it until the sun passes overhead and sinks, and then I rise and go back out into the dark.
Chapter Two
Jenny
The dinner rush is generous if you call it a rush at all. Four orders in two hours, all of them basic burgers with no modifications, all of them eaten quickly and quietly at the tables near the entrance. By seven, the food court is back to its usual evening hush. Muzak loops through the speakers above us, and somewhere across the way the woman at the Corn Dog Factory is loudly arguing with someone on the pay phone by the restrooms.
I scrape down the prep area while Tammy refills the ketchup pumps. The pumps always run out fast on weeknights because Dale buys the cheapest possible ketchup in giant industrial jugs and people use twice as much when it tastes like nothing.
"My sister-in-law called this morning," Tammy says, not looking up from the pump. "She wants me to bring Marcus over for Christmas. Like the whole thing. Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, the works."
"That sounds nice."
"It sounds like a hostage situation." She caps the pump and reaches for the next one. "Her house is the size of a postage stamp and she has three kids of her own. Last year she made the boys sleep in the same bed and Marcus came home with a black eye. He said he fell."
"Did he fall?"
"He didn't fall." Tammy sets the second pump down hard. "Her oldest is a menace. I've been telling her this for years. But she's family and Christmas is Christmas and I'm going to spend two days pretending her casserole doesn't taste like wet paper."
I huff out something that's almost a laugh. Tammy glances up and gives me a smile, pleased with herself.
"What about you?" she asks. "What are you doing for Christmas?"
I keep my eyes on the prep counter. "I haven't decided."
"Going to see your folks?"
"Probably not."
She doesn't push it. She caps the last pump and lines all three back up at their stations. The pay phone argument across the way ends with a slam loud enough to echo. The woman at the Corn Dog Factory stomps back to her counter, and the food court returns to its low hum.
A teenager wanders up to the counter around seven-thirty. Hooded sweatshirt, headphones around his neck, the kind of boy who's at the mall because he has nowhere else to be. He orders a small fry and a water and pays in quarters and dimes. Tammy counts the change without comment and slides his cup across the counter. He retreats to a booth in the corner and starts pulling fries from the bag one at a time.
By eight-thirty I'm cleaning the grill again and Tammy is starting on the registers.
"You getting enough sleep?" she asks.
I look up. "What?"
"You look tired."
"I always look tired."
"You look more tired."