Each morning when Calla left for work, Emaline took a cup of tea out to the back porch, sat on the rocking chair, watched the light of the rising sun strike the bluff and the buffalo. She would go out again in the evening to watch the sunset, but at midday when the sky went the palest blue of river ice she remained indoors. The pale summer light was too harsh. It reduced the great bluff to mere dust and clay and the buffalo looked parched and thirsty. Then the long shadows would stretch over the clusters of sage and the light would soften and in the long fiery streaks of cirrus clouds the vague yearnings would be born again as she sat and rocked and watched the buffalo vanish into darkness.

Calla, soaking her bunions in Epsom salts after a long day at the Arrowhead Diner, had more mundane matters in mind. “You know, Charlie Naudain would take you back at the Arrowhead as soon as you’re able to work.”

“Thank you, Calla. That’s good to know.”

“I’m run off my feet there and you know how Charlie feels about you. He’d always make a place for you at the Arrowhead, if he had to fire me to do it.”

“Goodness! I would never let that happen.”

“I know you wouldn’t, but Charlie would. I think he’s in love with you. When you think about it, you could have done worse than to marry old Charlie. He aint much to look at, but he’s got money in the bank and he’s as kind a man as I ever met. Him and Cecil Narrows. And here Charlie is a bachelor and Cecil is a widower and the both of them plumb crazy about you, and Vern Schneider mooning around over you until you married Jake and then he up and married that woman Connie Ballew. But Charlie and Cecil, they would have married you anytime. They’re older fellas, but neither of them would have done you as Jake did.”

“You could marry one of them, Calla.”

“Me? Not in a coon’s age. First place, neither of them fellas has ever looked at me twice. In the second place, I spent enough years pickin up a man’s dirty underwear. I’ve kind of taken to lookin after myself and nobody else.”

“You’re looking after me.”

“No. You’re stayin with me. It’s not the same. You look after yourself, even when you’re hurtin, like now.”

“Thank you, Calla.”

“I’m sorry, honey. But it’s better to know the truth about a man. You’re goin to have some hard decisions to make. It won’t help if you try to kid yourself. For the rest of your life, you’re goin to blame him for that baby. That’s a hard thing to have between you.”