Before the cold came, my mama and I used to fake-lock the driveway gate, looping the chain but not fastening the padlock, so it only looked locked to outsiders, in case Lobo was late and had forgotten his keys again. If he could just push on it to get it open, instead of kicking it in, or throwing his whole body against it, or yelling so loud we would hear from the farmhouse, that would help, some nights. He might not be as angry when he made it up the drive, frustrated at the world, looking to blame someone. But Lobo was gone. Those nights were over. I locked the gate for real, and headed down the roads into town.

High school graduation was a big deal, to have made it that far in this small town—little more than a holler, really, a dip between foothills—where no one would check up on you, no one would notice if you made it to class or not. And where there was always the pull of other work, work that would pay you, that seemed to matter more.

Lisbeth had given all the graduating seniors solos. I wished she had given herself one. How long since I had heard her sing?

The high school looked the same. It had only been four years since I had walked the halls myself, head down, not wanting anyone to stop and ask me for anything. People still asked, of course. Could I get them something, did I have anything, would I bring it to this party? In four years, people might have gone to college, gone away. But that was what people in other places did, not here.

Appalachian Ohio, the heart of nothing at all.

It was illegal, so Mama shielded me. But she loved Lobo, or thought she did, so we’d moved out onto the property to be with him. We had our own place, a tiny shack in a field away from the main house where all the plants were: a safeguard in case the sheriff came. The sheriff never came. A small, narrow house, built on a trailer, it had a skinny kitchen with a gas-powered fridge and a propane stove, a woodstove for heat, a ladder that led to a loft. By the time I was fifteen, the shack was my place, and I slept alone there every night; Mama had moved into the farmhouse. She said it was because the tiny house was cramped for two people—but I knew the real reason: she had chosen him over me.

By the time I was eighteen, I was working alongside Mama and Lobo. They didn’t pay me, and I had small, fast hands.