After, we sat on the bank.

“Why do you live at the Land Trust?” I asked.

“Because that’s where Karen is,” Lily said.

“I needed a place to stay while I went to nursing school,” Karen said. “They said I could build out there.”

“But why land that’s women only?” I asked.

“I used to think my trouble was that I didn’t want to live around men. That place brought relief for a while,” Karen said. “Now I’d just as soon not live around women, either. It turns out my trouble might be that I don’t want to live around anyone at all.”

“Even me,” Lily said. She laughed. Karen didn’t.

“My boyfriend said too much solitude is what drove Rudy crazy,” I said.

“Do you think Rudy’s crazy?” asked Karen.

I thought about how to answer. “I trust him with my life every single day that I work with him,” I said.

“That counts for a lot,” Karen said. “Maybe for everything.” She spat a wad of sticky saliva into the water, watched the current carry it away. Lily leaned back onto her elbows. Stretch marks traveled from her pubic hair to her belly button, pressed inside out.

“How long have you known Rudy?” I asked.

“Karen went to high school with him,” Lily said.

“Not really,” Karen said. “Neither one of us ever went to class.”

“How can you be friends with him?” I asked.

“We’re not friends with him,” Karen said.

“Well, we sort of are,” Lily said.

“We’re associates,” Karen said.

“I don’t think he has anyone else,” Lily said. “Except maybe for you.”

There was silence, and I thought, What am I doing? What am I doing inviting these two women down to the creek? Setting up insurance? Is it appropriate to spend time with people so that later you can call them from jail? So that they will miss you if you lie out on the coal company land too long? If Rudy was isolated and weird, so was I. To map it out: Karen and Lily sat side by side in their small square cabin, waiting for no one but their unborn child. A few ridges away from them, my camouflage camper was as far away as a comet, spectacularly wrecking itself in outer space.

They must have known it. They must have known it much better than I did. Why else would they have come to help me with the ducks? But if that’s what Karen and Lily thought of me, they did not see a need to say it out loud, and maybe it was then that I began to love them.

“We know about the names Rudy calls us,” Karen said. “We know about his bad attitude, but we have a certain relationship with him.”

“It’s because of that day with the ash tree,” Lily said. “That changes things between people.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

“The ash tree,” Lily said. “Oh Jesus, Shane really didn’t tell you why he was leaving?”