“I don’t want to be anyone’s landlord. I want to own the land in common,” Helen said. She kept her voice even, tried to make it sound like it didn’t matter to her one way or the other, but you could hear that she’d already decided: she had a plan, and we were it.

Karen heard it, too. “Can’t afford to own land,” she said, touching Perley’s nose so that his eyes crossed.

“But thank you anyway,” I said. “It’s wonderful of you to invite us.”

“The land’s paid off,” Helen said. When Karen raised her eyebrows, Helen said, “My boyfriend earned money working up north, up in one of those man camps.”

“So it’s Shane who owns the place?” asked Karen.

“We never got around to putting his name on anything,” Helen said. “Just mine. I put the money down to start. But we could put your names on it. We’ll pay the land taxes together. You won’t owe me anything.” It got my attention, and I could see Karen was listening, too. In our four years together, Karen and I had never lived anywhere we weren’t just renting. Even the Land Trust, with all its talk about sisterhood, owned the cabin Karen built. We were probates. We paid. Not much, but enough that we couldn’t afford to have both of us home with Perley much longer. We were already a month behind, as Deirdre and Janice gently reminded us at weekly land meetings. Still, I reached out and put my hand on Helen’s arm.

“Slow down,” I said. “What’s this about?”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Why us?” I asked.

The stew spat, sizzled. Perley farted. Helen looked hard at the ceiling.

“I don’t really know any other people,” she said. Karen looked at me like, Danger, danger, but my eyes were already full.

“I thought you were going back to Seattle,” Karen said.

“And just walk away from that piece of land?” Helen asked, voice like she’d swallowed wet fur.

“There’s no place to live out there but that camouflaged camper,” Karen said. “Which is smaller than this place, for Christ’s sakes.”

“Move onto my place in the spring, and we’ll build a house this summer,” Helen said, herself again.

“Can’t afford to build a house,” Karen said.

“We’ll salvage material,” Helen said, as if butting heads with Karen was the final ingredient to her resolve. “Frank’s selling me the seconds his crew demos. They’re replacing some professor’s roof next week and giving us the old one.”

“Us,” Karen repeated, shaking her head.

“Hardly a thing wrong with it,” Helen said.

“When are we going to have this house finished by?” asked Karen.

“We’ll move in next fall,” Helen said.

“Next fall? Better be a small house, then,” Karen said.

“It’ll be the perfect size for three,” Helen said.