Killshot

morning and we got a divorce.’ He tells me all this, I say, ‘Yeah, but there’s one thing you didn’t mention. Did you have sexual intercourse that night?’ And your dad says, ‘Why not?’ ”

Maybe it was funny.

***

Wayne rolled out of bed saying, “Jesus, I’m late. I’ll never make it.”

“That clock’s fast,” Carmen said. She stood in her robe watching him. “The coffee’s made. What else do you want, a sandwich?”

“Why didn’t you wake me up?”

“I did, twice. I thought, well, if he wants to go he’ll get up. If he doesn’t, he won’t. Isn’t that the way you’d look at it?”

Less than ten minutes later he was in the kitchen, clean coveralls over his shoulder. Carmen sat at the breakfast table with toast and coffee, looking out at the backyard in a mist of rain.

“I can’t find my goddamn keys. I bought new gloves, I can’t find them either.”

“The gloves are on the refrigerator.”

“I know I didn’t leave them in the pickup. I used my house key to come in.” He stood looking about the kitchen saying, “Shit, I don’t know where they are.”

“I made you a meat-loaf sandwich,” Carmen said. “Sit down, have some coffee.”

“No, I gotta run. Listen, I’ll have to take the Olds. You mind?”

“Didn’t you park behind it, in the drive?”

“I can get around the pickup. I’m not worried about ruining that goddamn lawn.”

“What if I have to go somewhere?”

“Well, the keys’re here someplace, you’ll find them, you’re good at finding things.” He came over to the table, picked up the sandwich, took a bite and gave Carmen a kiss. “I’ll call you when we get to Cairo. It should be early this afternoon.”

“I wish I knew what time,” Carmen said.

“I think early, by two anyway.”

Wayne walked out of the kitchen, was gone only a few moments and came back in.

“You have the keys for the Olds?”

Carmen was positive Ferris would stop by sometime today. She had made up her mind, the moment she saw that cream-colored Plymouth coming up Hillglade she’d call the Cape Girardeau Police, 555–6621, she had the number memorized. Or, she’d run out back and hide in the woods. The only problem was she had to find Wayne’s keys and call her mother, and she didn’t want to be down on the floor looking under the dresser or in the kitchen talking to her mom and hear Ferris walk in. Not again. It was not ever going to happen again. She could leave here, call her mom from the mall or somewhere once she found the god-damn keys. But it was hard to stop and think where they might be when she had to keep running into the living room to look out the window. She decided, finally, to make the call. Get it over with.

Carmen sat at the breakfast table, dialed the number, cleared her throat and waited. She listened to it ring several times, thinking, Come on, will you? She got up from the table with the phone and brought it across the kitchen as far as the cord would reach, the phone ringing several more times. From here she could look straight into the living room and see the big picture window and its view: the back end of a failed subdivision where cars seldom went by. She saw the road directly in front of the house and trees beyond in this morning’s mist of rain. The phone continued to ring, Carmen listening, thinking, One more. But let it ring twice again, staring at the front window, and was startled to hear her mother saying, “Who is this?”

“Mom? It’s me.”

“Well, where are you?”

“The same place. Did I call at the wrong time?”

“I was lying down on the floor with my legs on a chair. It’s the only way I can get any relief, if I lie perfectly still and not move.”

“What’s wrong, your back?”

“I had to crawl to the phone. My back has never been this bad in my entire life.”

“I’m awfully sorry, really. Did you call yesterday?”

“I called twice. You gave me the wrong number. I’ve been in terrible pain ever since that man was here and gave me the back rub. Oh, my Lord, when I try to move. I have to crawl to the bathroom to go the toilet. I didn’t sleep all night with the pain, I couldn’t.”

Carmen stared at the front window in the living room.

“What man? Who was it gave you the back rub?”

“From the company Wayne was working for, when you left. They want to send him his check.”

“He picked it up,” Carmen said. “I’m pretty sure.”

Her mother groaned saying, “I’ve never felt pain like this. I imagine you can tell from my voice. It’s just something terrible when I try to move.”

“Mom, you let a man give you a back rub you don’t even know. What’s his name?”

“He seemed nice, he said he learned from a therapist how to do it. Now I can’t walk, I can’t dress myself or take a bath. I should’ve known better than to let an ironworker touch me. I’m not going to the hospital, the way they treat you. If I lie here on the floor and try not to move ... It’s so cold in the house, I’m gonna have to see if I can reach the thermostat and turn the heat up. But I raise my arms, it just about kills me.”

“Mom, if I was home you know I’d come. I’m seven hundred miles away.”

A car appeared in the front window. There for a moment creeping past the house. A light-colored car.

“How long would it take you?”

Carmen stared at the window, empty now.

“Not more than a day, would it? ... Carmen?”

“I can’t just drop everything and come. Wayne’s off on a job.”

“I don’t need Wayne. You drove your car, didn’t you?”

“There must be someone you can call, one of your friends.”

“Like who? They work or baby-sit or have husbands they have to take care of. Doctors don’t make house calls, they don’t do you any good anyway. Sit and wait hours to see them, they give you a prescription . . .”

The car appeared again and Carmen was ready. A cream-colored Plymouth, Ferris’s car, no doubt about it, creeping by, going the other way now. She couldn’t see the driveway in the window. The car passed from view but might have turned in.

“They give you so-called pain pills that don’t come near reaching the pain I have now. If you ever suffered from it you’d know what I mean. Well, I’m gonna try to get up those stairs and go to bed. I have that extra-firm mattress with a board

under it . . .”

“Mom, I’ll have to call you back.”

“Not that it did me any good last night, and I can’t stay up there, but I just don’t know what else to do.”

“Mom!”

“What?”

“Someone’s here. I’ll call you back, okay?”

“Who is it?”

Carmen said, “I’ll call you as soon as I can,” placed the phone on the floor and ran into the living room.

Wayne’s pickup stood in the drive. There was no sign of a cream-colored Plymouth.

Carmen stood by the window knowing Ferris would be back, wanting to be ready but thinking about the keys for the pickup too, wanting to get out of here.

She had looked everywhere in the house Wayne might have dropped or left a ring holding a half dozen keys and a St. Christopher medal. She had looked in the pockets of his dirty coveralls, the pants and shirt he’d worn yesterday, on top the refrigerator, where his new work gloves were lying and he’d forgotten them, even inside the refrigerator and behind it. She pictured him entering the house last night, turning the light off in the kitchen, he