Jim spoke up:

“From the moonshine harvest
our nightwatch we reap,
the love of our neighbors,
our bloodkin we keep.”

Leo looked at his father.

“You don’t know who wrote that, do you?”

“No.”

“You ought to, you sure as hell ought to, you look just like her.”

“Drink some of that iced coffee, Jimmy.”

“You tell me he doesn’t.”

Leo kept his eyes on Ryder. He knew who his father was talking about. He sipped more beer.

Ryder put the meat loaf in the oven and wiped his hands off on his apron. “Some poor fool rolled his trailer into the power station this morning, so we spent the day at the club. ’Course your old man here spent a little more than the rest of us.” Ryder took off the apron, hung it on its nail, and got a Narragansett from the fridge. “Sure, I know Chick Donovan. Two years ago he was up at the mill passing out pamphlets at the gate. Remember that, Jim? Those history articles talking about unions being the brainchilds of our communist brothers and a bunch of other horseshit like that? Nice enough fellow, though. He built my gal’s porch and new kitchen a while ago. Did a damn good job too.”

“Yeah, he’s showing me a lot.”

Jim stood all at once and stepped outside with his iced coffee. The rain gutter was full and dripping loud but Leo could still hear Jim’s boots on the ground as he went around the house.

“Man, why’d he drink so much?”

Ryder shrugged and sipped his beer. “You know Bill O’Donnell? That good-looking fella Lars brought over here a couple times?”

“Steve McQueen.”

“That’s him, his boy got killed in action last week.”

Leo sipped his beer.

“You probably didn’t know him-he went to the high school in Holyoke. Anyhow, Bill was drinking next to your old man all day and I guess that’s all it took for Jim. Young Buddy knows as well as I do how soft he can get.”

“But what’s the scoop anyway, Ride? He wasn’t always this bad. Since last year he’s been worse, like she just died. I don’t get it really.”

“I have a hunch.”

“What?”

“What did your papa say just now?”

“A bunch of drunk crap.”

“No, he said you look just like Katie Faye.”

Leo had never heard Ryder say her name before. He said it like he had lunch with her yesterday. “Did you know her pretty well?”

Ryder nodded. He started to sip his beer, but then stopped. “You do look an awful lot like her, Leo, now that you’ve lost your baby fat. That’s what your father’s been seeing lately, but it’s not what you think. Jim isn’t feeling bad ‘cause you remind him of her. He’s scared of losing twice what he already lost once, that’s all. And it didn’t help him today hearing about O’Donnell’s boy.”