All day he talked about it, continuing to check his watch. “Don’t know how it’s even possible for me to give her a ride home, seeing as men aren’t allowed on her piece-of-shit land. Of course I wouldn’t set foot there even if they expressly invited me. Which they have. Oh, it was rich when they brought me onto their land to take out that ash tree. That’s feminists for you. They still want men to do the heavy lifting.”

“How did you meet them?” I asked.

“Like I said, me and your man cleared an ash for them,” Rudy said. “He didn’t tell you?” He looked at me strangely.

“No,” I said. “He never told me. So, what? So men are allowed on their land after all?”

“It still proves my point,” Rudy said. “They don’t need men until they need men. And now one of them is pregnant. It doesn’t make a bit of sense. Goddamn, have you seen her? She must be as big as a house by now. But I’ve still got my standards,” he said. “I’ll give her a ride, but I won’t stop the car all the way to let her out. I’ll just open the door and let it roll. I have to show them I have some self-respect. They always think they can get the best of me.” He shook his head. “Goddammit,” he said. “She’s as beautiful as god himself.”

That afternoon at the hardware and salvage store, I followed Rudy toward the back, where a pregnant woman in overalls lay with her head underneath a jacked-up cabinet. Her belly domed above her. Lying there, she could have been a snake eating an elephant. Rudy stood blushing behind his beard, chewing on the end of his matted ponytail. She kept working. No one said anything.

“Are you Lily?” I finally asked.

“We do everything here,” her voice came from under the cabinet. “Scratch-and-dent. We fix it up, sell stuff out back. Hardware in front. You need something?” She pulled herself out from under the cabinet, but stayed on her back, holding a screwdriver in one hand, her long black hair spilling out from under a baseball cap.

“Rudy,” she said, “would you mind putting this stuff away for me?” She pointed her chin at the tools strewn on the floor.

Rudy scooped them all up and disappeared down an aisle. Lily closed her eyes and put her hands on her belly. She seemed to be sleeping. I wasn’t sure what to do. Then she opened her eyes and looked at me a long moment. Carefully, she mentioned my boyfriend.

“He left,” I said.

“I know,” she said. “How are you getting along?”

“Just fine,” I said, to see how it sounded.

She continued to lie there, her sharp white chin pointing up at me. “It can be hard on your own. Especially when winter comes,” she said.