“Yeah, no. I guess.” He had nothing to report other than the sound of rot. “How about you? Holding up out there?”

“Ha,” Michelle snorted. She shifted, squaring up like a linebacker. Her head swiveled, her neck cracked, and then she got right to it. The fuck did Henry think, huh? All she could say was thank shit her sister worked nights and had been able to watch Junior while Michelle went to work herself. Not like that changed much of anything, like. Just weren’t no way to make ends meet on her own. Their home was falling apart. Kitchen sink clogged, air conditioner busted. Not that she could afford to keep it running. Her nipples were chomped raw. And who’d a thought diapers would be so fucking expensive, and this little shit factory weren’t helping none, burning through them like it was his motherfucking job. And she never slept, Hen. Felt like she ain’t had a wink since back before he got took. Did he have any idea what that was like? Working overtime and watching a baby and cutting coupons and squeezing pennies and keeping alive but not living—and all on zero fucking sleep? Impossible. She weren’t going to make it. She was so tired, Hen, so tired that everything felt heavier, like. Everything far away, on mute, and moving slower. The days, the time. And still a whole another nine years of this shit?

“Five with good behavior,” Henry said.

“Fucking splendid, Hen,” she snapped. “You ain’t let me finish. The last time we talked? I was right. We really are gonna have to file for bankruptcy. Got any idea what that means?”

His fingers climbed back up the smudges. He lied, telling her he did and that everything was going to be fine. Reminded her how long it could have been. Five years was a drop in the bucket compared to, well.

She hadn’t heard. Hadn’t wanted to listen, it seemed, having tipped the receiver away from her ear.

“It’s just I can’t,” she started.

“Can’t what?”

There was no budging that glass, no getting through. The sinew of his forearm quaked and burned as he pressed harder and harder, but he couldn’t reach her, couldn’t touch his family. All he wanted was to encourage her, to celebrate her. Way back when they’d met, she had come back from the dead, put meat on her bones and sunshine in her chest, and so he knew she could do absolutely anything she put her mind to. His faith in her was so resolute that he couldn’t get his head around it, couldn’t believe her saying she couldn’t. “But what, though? You can’t what, Michelle?”

“I can’t stop thinking about Al.”