“Might be.” Ruth ran her hands up the metal of the cord, felt the joints bump against her fingertips. “Or maybe I'd just come home without him.”

“I don't know, Ruth. You have to think of the kids.”

Ruth sniffed. As if she ever stopped thinking about her kids, as if they weren't the first thing she always thought of, her closest, most essential thoughts. It was Del she didn't know how to think about. It wasn't indifference she felt, not really, it was more like having to decide whether she wanted to sink ever deeper into Del or whether she wanted him to disappear, or to disappear herself. These topics were not available to discuss with Sister. She couldn't possibly understand a marriage, but that wouldn't keep her from having strong opinions.

Sister kept going. “What I mean, Ruth, is that maybe there's some better use for that money, if you manage to save it, than just coming back to where you started.”

Ruth pulled the nursing school brochure out of her pocket. Good jobs helping others. Rural training initiative means flexibility for you. She had never been jealous of Sister's vows, chastity least of all, but she'd been surprised by how green she'd felt when the church sent Teresa to college.

“I'll think on that one,” Ruth said, and because she wanted to do that thinking before she talked any more to Sister about it, she asked, “How's Mano?”

Mano was their especially little sister, seventeen, the age difference between Ruth and Mano almost the same as the age difference between Mano and Charley.

“Flighty. Struggling to finish high school now that she knows she got her scholarship to that art school in Denver.”

“She'll make it,” Ruth said, picturing Mano flourishing her calligraphy pens.

“I'll make her.”

Ruth could see Mano, dreamy, bent deeply into her art, Sister hovering behind her, checking the clock, encouraging strict production deadlines. Life in the church must be so simple, Ruth thought, if it allowed for such clarity, such a sense of control. “I have to go. There's a line for the phone.”

“I miss you, Ruthie. Kiss those kids for me. Call soon.”

Del was three sheets when she found him again, so she took the wheel of the Falcon. She wanted to pack the kids in the back and keep going all the way to Colorado, let her mother read them books, let Mano teach the girls to paint, let Sister explain the mystery of the Trinity to Charley. It wasn't Del's gathering restlessness she felt, it was her own. This time, Del couldn't “quit” fast enough.

The tires threw gravel as she pulled onto the road. “Jesus, Ruthie,” Del said, “you don't have to donkey-stomp it.”