Then Frances watched in her white nightgown as the angrily crying mother rushed across the living-room in bare feet, hoisting the fish tank in her arms, tripping across the rug, and smashing the entire container and its contents down the kitchen sink. Most of the fish slid down the drain, though some struggled in the cut glass mounded in the drain-trap. The mother doused the entire sink area with vinegar and went to bed.

It was not a wholly unique evening for Frances. Yet she wondered what meaning the fish episode had, if any. Hours later, she had not determined one. At sunup she stepped across the kitchen’s cold flagstones and scraped her fingertips in the drain, seeking any surviving fish, without success.

Now, Frances shuddered and leaned back on her stool. Stirring the blackish, scalded coffee, she considered her family. Lately, they and other townsfolk had urged her to find a better boyfriend than Ray. “He’s not best for you,” her mother had advised, while her father stood in the rear hallway of the house, scantly nodding. In a way, Frances thought, it was true. Ray was a bit dull, and he was overfocused on world history. Yet she had no better friend than Ray. Was a better man possible? “Good men—as rare ’round here as pickled hooves!” once joked her aunt, an older woman who had died in bed with her hands in the air.

Many Munson men were bachelors. The same went for Munson women, and the women frequently retired early from work and life altogether. Folks were hesitant about going out; Frances often saw neighbors moving in their homes as shadows behind curtained windows. There were few social events in town: perhaps a wedding every five years, and one annual dance

Frances looked down halfheartedly into a pan of broth.

It was nearly dark. Ray and his brother appeared at the end of Ann Street, walking home, their small, loping steps rhythmic. The screen door slammed.

“Why do you always bring that up?” Kenny, Ray’s brother, was saying.

“Because it’s damned true,” answered Ray. “Why else? You’re always coming down with an ailment, be it the sniffles or indigestion.” Ray removed his dark, short coat. “Some people are born weak; you were.”

“I don’t like it when you talk like that!” the fireman cried. “I’m as fit as anyone at the station.”

“Nope,” Ray replied coolly from a chair.