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“Keith is not good,” Wanda said, “but he is resting comfortably at home.”

“How bad is it?” Russ said.

“He is resting comfortably but I am told that he is very weak.”

Into Russ’s throat came the sadness of life’s brevity, the sadness of the sunless hour, the sadness of Easter. God was telli…

Neither Charlie Durochie nor his truck was at the little house in town. When Russ found a woman down the street who spoke English, she said that Charlie was gone for the summer and Keith was with his wife’s people, up on the mesa. She nodded in a direction where there was only glare and dusty vacan…

She was wearing a wide-necked brown sweaterdress and thick gray socks. Seeing her as she was at home, not in one of her smart Sunday outfits, not in her Tuesday-circle tomboy attire, he had an unsettling strong hit of her reality—her independence as a woman, her thinking of thoughts and making of…

“You wanted the kids. You wanted this life.”

“You didn’t?”

“If it had been up to me, we’d be devoted to service. You wouldn’t be a housewife, and I damn sure wouldn’t be giving sermons to bankers and the bridge club.”

“You’re saying that I’m the one who dragged you down? That you’re th…

“All right.” She brought the cigarette to her lips, her eyes crossing to focus on the coal. “It annoys me that you want to fuck her.”

The kitchen seemed to spin beneath his feet. He’d never heard that word from her.

“It’s really quite annoying, and if you think it’s because I’m jealous, that’…