Vronsky was pissed and was tempted to jump on his bike and tear out of the lot, the hell with Leonard and his mother. But he had seen how difficult his mother made his older brother’s life when he didn’t fall in line. After one semester of college, Kiril told his mother he was going to drop out, because he felt college was a waste of time. He woke up the next day to find his credit cards cut off and his bank account empty. He had lasted two days before calling his mother, asking her opinion on whether he should take macro- or microeconomics for his upcoming semester; she said macro, and Kiril got an A in the class as an apology.

In the backseat of his mother’s silver Mercedes Maybach, Vronsky kept silent. Normally he wouldn’t have held his mother’s bullying against Leonard because he knew the man was just doing his job, but he wasn’t in the mood for small talk. Vronsky had been waiting for his mother to drop the hammer for weeks now, surprised it had taken her this long to summon him. Ever since he became obsessed with Anna, he knew he had ignored every other area of his life. He had canceled on his mother half a dozen times in the last month alone, and each time he did it he expected a call from her, but none had come. Vronsky figured his mother was wrapped up in some personal drama, and considered himself lucky she was otherwise occupied.

It had been over a week since he had heard from Anna, and he was barely holding it together. Every day after school he rode the forty minutes to Staugas Farms in hopes of seeing her, but Anna had been a no-show all week. So instead he hung out with Murf. At first they drank beers and Vronsky sulked, but after two days of bitching and moaning, Murf put his friend to work. A new storage shed had just been built, and Vronsky helped Murf get it organized properly. Vronsky’s back was still bruised from the timber race fall, but his bruises were now yellow and green, versus the angry purple and red they had been. Murf taught Vronsky how to handle a power drill, patiently walking him through how to put together the first of the eight ten-by-ten industrial steel shelves that would line two walls of the unit. Vronsky found the monotonous work relaxing, though it didn’t free him from his constant roiling thoughts of Anna. The labor gave him something to do, and it would be a good way for him to get back in Mr. Staugas’s good graces after the whole timber race debacle.