Del shrugged, pointed toward the mountains with his palms up, as if he was offering her some gift. “This is as good a home as any.”

Del was so close that Ruth could feel the warmth of him on her shoulder. She stepped away, and they watched Charley, alone, head for the edges of the trailer park, back toward the scrub sage foothills of the Shoshones. Ruth felt sadness settle, again, all around her. There wasn't a single tree within walking distance for Charley and the girls to climb, no ancient catalpa with its June blossoms, no bean pods to throw at one another.

“I got a new job. Trucking company. They're picking me up tonight.”

“Driving trucks?”

“Reno, first, then down to San Francisco tomorrow. From there, they say they got at least two weeks of routes. Long-haul.”

Ruth sat back down in the chair. She kicked her shoes off with a strength she hadn't expected and her left shoe flew gracefully, almost with purpose, landing in the scrub sagebrush just past the area she had cleared as a front yard. Ruth thought she saw a tarantula skittering across the patch of light brown dirt that, having been liberated of its anchoring vegetation, puffed up around them, but in February, it seemed unlikely.

“You're going to leave us here and go off yourself?” she said. She felt unbearably heavy. She looked at her shoe in the sagebrush. She left it go. “To drive a truck?”

“Look in the want ads. There's no jobs but at the mine.”

“But the kids, and the baby coming.” Ruth's arms had gone dead. It would take a lot, she thought, to move her arms right now. The whole of her body felt defeated, all her energy sucked dry. And something else, something cool like the desert evening. Relief, maybe. And something even more, a longing for her own solitary long-haul route. Jealousy, certainly.

“Look, I'm not leaving you, Ruth. It's a job, is all. I'll send the paychecks.”

Ruth dropped her chin and closed her eyes, and the relief of not seeing in that moment made her wish all her other senses could be so easily blocked, that she could make herself stop hearing, stop feeling through some series of actions as simple as blinking.

“Unless you got any better ideas,” Del said.

Charley and the girls had returned from their wanderings, had gathered around the porch, straining to hear every word without being caught listening. Charley stood close to his sisters, as though he wanted to try to catch the bad news before it hit them, soften the delivery.

“Guess not,” Ruth said. “Guess it sounds like this all works out real well for you. All that roaming, and then you drop in to see the family once every two weeks.”

Del shook his head. “You'll get over it, Ruthie. You'll see. It's for the best.”

“Not my best.”

“I gotta pack,” Del said, and he disappeared into the trailer.