“Daddy's leaving?” Nancy said, and when Ruth nodded, the girls sat down at her feet. Brenda leaned her head against Ruth's leg. Nancy kept her back straight. Too fragile for contact, she needed only proximity.

Charley took her hand, pointed it above the tallest peak of the Shoshones, the trailing shadow of the sunset drama spread in all directions. “Look, Ma,” he said, wiping the tears off her cheek, “those are cirrus clouds, and they're all pink and purple. I think they're the happiest clouds, don't you? Birthday-streamer clouds.” He stroked Ruth's cheek with the back of his hand. It was the most tender anyone had been with her for ages.

“Thanks, buddy,” she said, finally, drawing him close to her in an awkward hug, stroking Nancy's hair with her fingers, feeling Brenda warm against her shin.

Babies weren't the only thing that could upend an entire world. The world changed fast or slow for a million reasons. There weren't always nine months of knowing what was coming. There wasn't always time to prepare.

AFTER A FEW DAYS, Ruth moved Del's empty chair away from the family table. She taught Charley how to keep the handles of the pot turned sideways to avoid spills and burns. She told her kids that after school was all-they-could-watch TV so long as they behaved, so long as they could fend for themselves. During the after-school hours, when she was at work, she imagined the trailer on fire, imagined tarantula bites, imagined poking Del's two eyes with her fingers when he next came by for a weekend. Evenings, she reread the nursing school brochure, as though she'd find new instructions printed there, not just what but how and should. She wished a dead ancestor would lean down from the heavens and tell her whether she was fooling herself.

Sometimes the kids came with her to work, spent their days in Allen's one-room trailer on the outskirts of Berlin. Every time they went, Charley tapped the handmade sign on Allen's door that read: Ranger Station. The trailer was full of machines and panels Ruth thought must be for radio broadcasting, for all of Allen's lonely, conspiracy-minded midnight transmissions.

“Del called in last night,” Allen said, “with some theories about mind control.”

Ruth rolled her eyes. “If he calls back,” she said, “tell him to send the rent.” Del didn't call her from his long-haul routes. Apparently, he prioritized the aliens.

Allen had been washing his clothes more often. Last week, he'd trimmed his beard. Ruth kept just enough distance to discourage him. She was, after all, still married.

“You getting by all right, Ruth?” Allen's brow furrowed. He looked worried, and Ruth felt compelled by the sorrow she saw behind it.

Ruth shrugged, nodded. Allen meant well, but beyond loyal friendship, beyond this job, what did he really have to offer?