There’d been no time to wallow in remorse. Henry was Pa now, and so had things that needed getting done, first and foremost of which was to figure out how to replenish both funds and the pantry. After a week of asking after openings in shops and garages around town, landing an on-the-books job proved hopeless. At the bottom of every application was the box, the motherfucking box: Have you ever been convicted of a felony?

Getting a call back was as unlikely as it was later impossible to scrape together enough money for rent, food, gas, and bills by scrapping metal or taking odd jobs around town. He’d even gone so far as to beg Sandi—just short of falling to her feet—to let him work off the month’s rent by doing repairs and upkeep around the park, the same sort of deal she cut for her geriatric biker pals.

Sandi spat tar.

“As manager, safety’s my number one priority, boy,” she’d said. “Really think people don’t talk none? Think us all don’t know where you been the last five years, huh? Got shit for brains to think I’d ever let your ass into other residents’ homes.”

Electric and gas had been cut earlier this month, the last, December. Their lantern burned through D batteries at an unaffordable rate. After going through a box of tea candles, he’d picked up a cheap case of white dinner table candles and found that bowling their longer wicks and taller flames with aluminum foil radiated even more light and warmth. He now positioned himself over one of these mini—tinfoil torches now, toasting the ache out of his knuckles. Even though it was cold enough inside to make his breath visible, the top half of his coveralls hung loose at the back of his waist, trailing him like a canvas shadow. His bare forearms pressed into the countertop while his hands rearranged all the money he had left to his name—nearly all of it made from a frigid, frost-dusted yard sale—into four stacks: three twenties, seven tens, nine fivers, twelve singles. A neighbor on his way to the laundromat had traded thirty-three quarters for Henry’s dresser. The quarters were stacked in eight stumpy cylinders. These stacks along with the stray quarter, a dime, six nickels, and five pennies put him at exactly $195.70. No matter how many times he recounted or arranged the bills and coins, the sum never changed. And it wouldn’t last long.

The only piece of furniture he hadn’t lugged out to the snowy driveway was Junior’s mattress. Had to let the boy sleep as comfortably as possible these final nights in their home. Other than that, where the boy was sitting now, their home was completely empty, so hollow that all sounds and talk reverberated at a louder, lonelier decibel.