He looked at the boy on the mattress, then back to his boots.

He told her she was right, she was absolutely right.

Told her he’d been laid off today. Let go.

Told her she was right, yet again. Right as usual and all along.

Told her he’d failed them. He was sorry. He was so, so sorry.

A canyon of silence. To ever work his head back upright seemed impossible. Eventually he managed, and when he did, he caught a spark. A flicker of the person she’d been, the woman he’d loved. He wanted to hold her, to be held by her. Could this be their rock bottom, their turning point? She absorbed the news and the apology with a slow, gentle sip of air, and then released it—“Ha.”

She peered behind her, checking if anyone else had gotten the joke. Junior looked down.

“Ha,” she said.

She twisted toward Junior, asked how come he weren’t laughing—didn’t he get it? His daddy was a joke. A loser, failure, bum. And a fucking snitch. Brainless, dickless, and now jobless, too, and but did Junior even know what that meant? Useless, baby. It meant his daddy was totally fucking useless, like—ha.

She approached the mattress, stooping down to the boy. Said but seriously though, baby. Pay attention. She needed now more than ever for the boy to listen to her. Pay extra, super-duper close attention to Mommy, cause he really ought to remember this moment and what she had to say forever and ever, like.

She crouched lower and so did her voice, telling the boy he’d better do everything he possibly could so that he wouldn’t end up like his daddy—no, excuse her—his pa.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. She knew nobody in their right mind would ever want to turn out like that. Course not. Duh. And so that was why Junior had to use today as a lesson. A real-life example of what would happen to him if he weren’t a good boy, weren’t a smart boy. Otherwise, well, all he had to do was look—right there, see?

She jabbed a thumb over her shoulder.

“Right there,” she said, then released a fleet of mirthless chuckles that rolled her into a sort of trance. She shuddered midsway, blinked, started coming to. She looked around as if trying to locate herself, then noticed her own thumb. Seemed it was pointing to something. Her head turned, slowly, curious as to what it was signaling right behind her. And when she turned and discovered Henry, he swung the back of his fist into her mouth.

The blow twisted and threw Michelle, sending her rag-doll splayed and facedown on the floor. A hand quivered up, reaching for Junior, only inches from her fingertips.