He wondered what Chick would say about all this. Leo didn’t care really. And he sure wasn’t off to work on the house for him either. While he was drinking coffee back in the kitchen, two pictures had come into Leo’s head. The first was of the unfinished house, the framed roof and walls covered with new plywood that had already turned brown and gray under the rains; and there was all that material in the dark barn, the stack of drywall, the leftover two-by-fours, the wrapped shingle bundles near the door. Then the second picture had come to him; Allie lying on a bed, her legs spread for some man who stuck a vacuum cleaner nozzle inside her and turned on the machine that sucked up their little one, probably tearing it to pieces before it ever got to become the whole thing we all end up being. And Leo had to know. Was it a boy? Or was it a girl? Was it a Hewson? Or a Katie Faye? And this was just too much to ask. He dumped his coffee in the sink, wiped his face, and set out walking to at least shingle the roof before the whole damn house started to rot brand new.

It took all day but Leo had covered both sides and he was capping off the ridge when he heard a car coming down the road from the north. The sun hung low over the hills of the national forest across the river. The trees looked gold in this light, the road too. Leo stood, but the ground began to swing up at him, so he sat down on the ridge. He had taken off his shirt early and kept it off. Now his bare back felt skinned and he was glad the sun was finishing itself up. He figured the dizziness was from no food and no break, and the chills he felt were probably from no water which he felt stupid for not bringing because he had carved out an early thirst just by walking up here and tearing the padlock off the barn door with a two-by-four scrap from out back.

The car wasn’t a car at all, but a truck, a white Dodge pickup with an empty steel rack fixed in the bed. Its windows were rolled up. The radio was turned on loud inside and Leo could hear that new good song about the guy coming along so far just to sit on the dock of the bay. The truck drove by, slowed at the turn, then stopped, backed up, and stopped again. The window rolled down and there sat Floyd Starrett, his nose splint gone, looking up at Leo, bobbing his head to the song.

“Hey, killer,” Floyd said.

Leo rested his hand on the hammer handle. Now his head felt hot, almost as bad as his back. The radio clicked off and Floyd stepped out of his pickup, the engine still running.