I went into the bedroom after dinner for a bit of quiet. Dinner had gone about well as it could have, given the circumstances. Lizbeth spoke even less than she did the last time, when it was just Klara. Hute had the good sense not to talk much, only grunting to the few questions Clemmie asked him. I knew another talk with Lizbeth was in the works, and I wanted to be ready.

I picked Ma’s picture up and looked it over, just like I always did. I realized as I felt its weight, though, that I wasn’t really looking at it. Like sometimes you might look at a clock and forget to note the time. Like sometimes you might ask a question, but the answer slips out of your head before it’s in there.

It was dark out the window, but not all the way. I could still see the row of corn I planted with Pa. It seemed to be coming up fine, even without any work on it. Unless maybe Lizbeth had been out there, for whatever reason, tending to it. As I pictured her there pulling up weeds, it dawned on me what my mind was after, as if a part of myself was pointing a long finger to what the rest of me should be giving attention.

The limestone. The heavy rock that - what was it Tibbets called them, the geographists? – had calculated was down there below. It was a leap to assume he was telling the truth about anything, but it made no difference. I could almost see the plants dying right there before my eyes. I could imagine the house crumbling, being torn down around me. I could see the pictures on the faces of the townsfolk as we rode our wagon out past Four Points. And, again and worst of all, I could see Clemmie playing on a dirt floor in some shell of a house we might afford down where the Good Lord knows where. Only difference was, now in the dream she had no tattered book even, no tattered book of fairy tales. All she had now was a doll stuffed with hay, and they hay pouring out from the seams, a button-eye sprung from its socket and dangling by a thread.

“He’s absolutely a madman,” I heard from behind. Rather than turn and look at Lizbeth all at once, I stared at her reflection in the window, saw her drying her hands on the front of her dress. “You were better off with just the woman, Tom J. Least Clemmie thought that woman was something.” I did not know how long I was in my state of dream, but I realized fast that it was a good while. Moonlight now lit the field by the house; there was a clean reflection of my wife in the window.

“How’s that?” I said.

“It’s a good wonder you made it this far,” Lizbeth said.

I realized I was still holding the picture and I put it down. I turned around to look at her. “How’s that?”

“Stop saying that, Tom J,” Lizbeth said. She pulled her hair up good and hard like she always did when she was good and mad. “Stop asking me ‘how’s that?’ You better have a plan, Tom J.”

“Course I do,” I said. I still didn’t understand. I was going on instinct.

“You mind telling me what it is then?” Lizbeth asked. She brought her hands down from her hair and balled her fists, put her fists on her hips. “Cause it sure as hell can’t be bringing every crazy stray dog here trying to fix that election.”

“How’s…what are you talking about, Lizbeth?”

“Is that an Injun, Tom J? That man in our kitchen? He sure as hell looks like it, clothes notwithstanding. You know what he’s doing right now? In our kitchen? In our kitchen, that crazy man is talking blasphemy and…well…he looks to be drinking himself to death. Which at his age, it isn’t far to go and I wonder how he made it this long. And what’s he have in that pipe? Smells like he shoved some leaves in there and added every spice he could get his hands on. You would think a man so invested in his comforts could afford a pair of shoes. The Injun is not wearing shoes, Tom J.”