“Well, I’ve made up the cot for you. Let us just go on there,” she said. “Never you mind anything else.”

“Sure did miss you,” he said.

“I know it.”

“What, you ain’t miss me?”

“Stop messing. I did. Nice to be talking to someone else.”

Lady Mae had not said what she meant; the truth, hidden behind words she had practiced and rehearsed and made sure gave nothing away, was there right at the edges. It simmered in her periphery, a longing so instinctual and prolonged, she felt as if it would swallow her up.

There were few other residents out, but those that were walked hurriedly toward the square. Out of the corner of her eye, Lady Mae saw them turn their heads toward herself and Arbuckle as they passed. Perhaps they were afraid that when he took over at the cannery in just a few weeks’ time, it’d be just as bad as when his father ran it. Maybe worse. They would no doubt go back to their own shacks with the news of Arbuckle’s return and around their tables, the families would talk. Would he work them until they could stand no longer, until their knees buckled underneath them, their lips bloody and raw from the heat? Would their hands be blistered and peeling from the steam? When Arbuckle’s father had been in charge, the Deputies let him do anything he wanted as long as profit was involved. And despite the wretched human that he was, he did turn a profit. Not that the residents saw any of it. The Deputies kept from the residents what was rightly theirs, and instead sported new hats and shiny canes. Their chains glistened brightly in the sun. Their torches burned longer. The scaffold was sanded and scrubbed.

Lady Mae and Arbuckle walked for several moments in silence; the earth, salty and dry, held them gently as they did. There was the sound of the horses’ hooves in gravelly dust, her skirts flapping in the wind, the squeak of the suitcase’s handle as Arbuckle shifted it from one hand to the other. There was so much she meant to tell him, but all she could do was count how many footsteps were in stride with each, telling herself that if she got to twenty he’d stay for good.

“Been this hot long?” Arbuckle asked.

“Since the solstice. Storm’s coming, though.”

She licked her index finger and held it up to the sky. The wind blew against the pad of her finger, and she squinted to better see up toward the mountain ridge.

“There,” she said and pointed above the white specked peak. “It’s just on the other side. See them clouds?”

“When’d you learn about them clouds?” he asked. He took her hand in his; it was not the first time in her life that he’d made such gesture, but as she absorbed his warmth and strength she became aware of her body, of her heart leaping quick and untethered. It’d been so long since anyone had touched her, and in that moment there on the crescent road not fifty paces from the square she felt the weight of the absence as if for the first time. Her eyes stung and she grit her teeth together; she did not want to give into it there, did not want Arbuckle or any other resident to witness her weakness, gray and muddy and thick as hide.