Amy was still working, home health aide, part time. She'd gotten a referral recently and her hours were up. Bobby knew he should be grateful but he wasn't quite. Just because he knew jealousy was ugly didn't mean he could stop feeling it. Being with Amy had always been like that, like all the available luck was pulled into orbit around her, like her gravity was stronger than everyone else's. Amy's scratch tickets always paid at least five dollars. Amy always caught the most fish from the quarry ponds. When Amy found coins on the sidewalk, they were always heads up. He hadn't ever, in their old life, been jealous of Amy's luck, and now it somehow helped to remind himself that even Amy's luck had been no match against the forces of the global economy. Amy had lost the house too, same as he had.

Bobby sometimes climbed into Amy's cot, pulled her blankets up over his head, breathed in the smell of her—spring snow crab­apple trees, river water on sun-baked granite. The room felt less haunted when he imagined her in it. His heart rate would slow, the chaos in his head calm a bit, and he could pretend they hadn't lost so much, stop worrying that his marriage might be a fair-weather deal. When he'd emerge, un-cocoon himself, the glass Mason jars would catch the sunlight, reflect it back at him like hundreds of eyes, each one a bright shining accusation:

You are in bed while your wife is at work.

Some days, Bobby could force himself up off the cot, make a few phone calls, try to drum up some business. Most days, though, he pulled the blanket back over his head.

“I'd be at work if there was any,” he'd say, and then, “Get out of my head, ghosts.”

MAYBE THE PAPERS SAID the worst of the recession was over, but Bobby couldn't see it in real life, in the darkened downtown storefronts and liquidation sales, the hopeless expressions of the people sleeping in used cars in the Walmart parking lot, in the still-crowded foreclosure auctions. It had not been made clear to Bobby whether he'd been fired from his job as lead mechanic at the Saturn dealership because the economy tanked, or because GM wanted to kill the brand, or because he'd called in hungover one too many times. The occasional sick day had not been a problem before the recession. He'd eventually decided that the reason wasn't as important as the results. Days passed. He tried to look forward. Every morning he'd call Bruce, who had a construction company, a whole fleet of trucks, and every morning Bruce said some variation of the same thing. No, thanks, we're still barely working anyway, everything's still stalled.

“Really man,” Bruce had said, the last time he'd checked in. “I'll call you.”