There is only so much she can be expected to do. Only so much—and she’s doing it, isn’t she? Watteau expected her to sit entirely still on a table, her leg folded against a chair, her hand clutching the sickle that would, in the final product, be curled under the chin of a child hovering in the background—and she imagines she did just that. Uncle Phil expected her to tell him when she needed money, and she did that too, now and then, because there was nothing coming in from Dermot anymore and her paycheck was usually spent before she saw it; but asking felt awful to her, made her feel as if she were always exhausted for nothing, as if her efforts at keeping herself and Matt and Katherine fed and cared for were feeble and would never be enough. So she’d let that one bill slip, and then let it slip again because they didn’t seem to have cared, had sent no warning notice. And then one night, halfway through The Big Valley, the picture shrank to a pinpoint on the television screen and the apartment went dark and the fans slowed down to nothing. The silence was so sudden it seemed loud. The children were already asleep, thankfully. Teresa saw light coming from the apartment building beyond the living room windows and knew immediately what had happened. Thinking—trying only to think—that tomorrow she would buy candles, she reached over in the dark for her pillow and sheets, and stretched out flat against the couch.

Uncle Phil came by the next afternoon, a Saturday, with a bag of groceries resting on one arm. Matt ran up to him and hugged his leg and said, “Nothing works.”

“Nothing works? Well, I brought the works, right here. Vanilla ice cream and peanuts. If you have some ginger ale, we’ll make Boston coolers.”

He was already at the refrigerator before Teresa could stop him. He opened the door and stood in front of its darkened, warm interior, its carton of ruined milk, its dripping freezer compartment. She saw the back of his neck turn red above the black collar of his sport shirt. He turned around and his sagging face sagged a little more as he spotted the candles she’d set out on plates, not lighted yet but ready for sundown. He looked at her.

“Don’t,” she said softly, touching a finger to her lips.

“Don’t what? You didn’t pay the light bill?”

“There’s a problem with the electric company,” she said, glancing at Matt, and at Katherine, who was drawing jagged red lines across the pages of a coloring book. “We were just talking about it, weren’t we, Matt?”

“Teresa,” Uncle Phil said. He seemed baffled, irritated. “Teresa, what have you let happen here?”