Amy, back from work, sat down next to him in the shade of the giant silos. Bobby had spent most of the afternoon cleaning the bricks from the collapsed walls. He could disintegrate the old mortar with his bare fingers, watch it fall away, dissipate into the soil. It gave him some sort of hope, the tidy stacks of clean bricks next to the chaotic pile of collapsed wall.

“What you doing, baby?” Amy asked. She picked up a brick, held it close, inspected it closely.

“Thought I'd clean things up a bit,” Bobby said. “Give myself something to do.”

Amy looked up from the brick, inspecting him just as closely. “Still nothing, eh?”

No matter how she meant it, Bobby heard it both ways—still nothing, as in no work, and still nothing as in not working, not contributing, worthless. Amy put a hand on his knee, rubbed with her thumb, and Bobby felt his skin warm under her touch. “Maybe we need a bigger sign out front? Maybe we can get a banner made, something more professional?” Bobby loved the hope in Amy's mouth, would take whatever small proof that she still believed in him, which was the only way he could see believing in himself.

They heard the chug of a diesel engine, saw Elmer fiddling with the chain of the mill gate, Marcia waving from the passenger seat.

“My parents tell you they were stopping by?” When Bobby stood up, the pea gravel crunched under his feet, shifting, unstable. He grabbed both Amy's hands, steadied himself against her weight, helped her to standing.

“I'm always happy to see them.” Amy brushed the dirt off her pants first, then his.

Marcia, her hair still honey-brown, untied and a bit wild in the wind, offered Amy a foil-wrapped package, handed Bobby four quart jars. “Krautburgers and applesauce,” she said, and Bobby pictured his mother's kitchen counters as they'd always been in fall—covered in cabbage cores, scattered with stray flour, an apple pie still steaming from the oven, the kitchen air heavy with cinnamon sugar and brassica funk. “I'll do another round, next week.”

“City sent a notice about the weeds,” Elmer said. “Makes me think they're going to follow through on what they've been threatening, declare the place blight.” Elmer wore jeans stained with motor oil and ditch mud, suspenders over a T-shirt, a fancy welder's cap. Marcia made Elmer a fancy stitch cap every year at Christmas, and Elmer wore it every day, welding or not. Elmer's sun-worn skin was contracting, squeezing, tightening him into himself, making him take up less space in the world with every passing year. Bobby felt the same was happening to him, even though he was only thirty-six, even though there were not yet any visible markers. The recession had him pinned like a vise, his skin stretched too tight over his bones.