I left Fellis sleeping. I wasn’t feeling as sick as the day before, but I had those heart shivers, where thinking or not thinking both get you nervous. I was halfway up the ladder when I thought to take some of Fellis’s pins. I climbed back down and looked for the bottle. I found it and knocked four into my palm but I put one back because he was almost out. I couldn’t read when he was due a refill. That bit was peeled off. I swallowed one with no drink and put the other two in the tiny pocket on my jeans, and then I climbed out of the silo and headed home.

My mother was in the bathroom when I got home. I shut the back door behind me.

“Is that you?” she asked.

“Yeah, it’s me.”

“What?”

“It’s me!”

There was coffee left in the pot, and I poured a cup and went to the couch. That pin I took was doing its job: I was for the time being no longer shivering from thinking or not thinking. But I was tired. Real tired.

I lied and said no when she asked if I was sleeping.

“You don’t have to come,” she said. She sat down on the couch next to me and put on her shoes.

“I said I would,” I told her, and I stood up.

On the way off the rez we drove by Fellis walking down the road and in the rearview I watched as he turned around and watched right back.

The only time my mother and I talked during the drive to Woodlands was when she asked me for a lighter and I told her I forgot it. Nothing else was said. And you’d think there’d be some awkwardness in this drive, in this non-talking, but the truth is that we’re used to not talking. Or maybe it’s just me, since I can’t speak for her. But she’s never said otherwise.

I wonder if How’d we get here? is the wrong question. Maybe the right question is How do we get out of here? Maybe that’s the only question that matters.

My mother parked the car in the parking lot of Woodlands, and she asked if I was sleeping.

“No,” I said, and I got out of the car.

Woodlands was a nice-looking place. But like all assisted living centers or places where the old go to die, there was that empty feeling to it, like every part of the place—the walls, doors, handrails, desks, tables, counters, cupboards, board games, TVs, couches, chairs, plants, everything, all of it—was hollowed out and could so easily break, like that colored plastic used in children’s playhouses you see at day cares. If you could squeeze it hard enough, it would be misshapen. And the smell—the smell too had some hollow to it.