She fingered the tablecloth. “Then there’s your grandfather to consider,” she said. “You have to understand, he’s one of those people who don’t have a lot of tolerance for human weakness. Poppa and Grandma lived through the Great Depression, and as far as they’re concerned, anyone with a roof over his head and a little food in his belly has nothing to complain about. Your grandpa used just about every penny of his life savings to buy that piece of land for your mom and dad and this other section here for your uncle Harold and me. In his eyes we should all be happy, and anyone who’s not is just not trying hard enough. Right now it’s looking like your mom may lose the farm, and your grandpa’s doing everything he can to keep that from happening. He has no use for your father.”

Nate thought about his father working long days, into darkness even, herding their cows back from the grazing land, the blisters on his hands from weeks of baling hay. “It’s not Dad’s fault, he just had bad luck.”

Aunt Sal got up from the table. She took out a long bread knife and cut two slices from the fresh loaf. She spread butter over them. One piece for him, one for her. “Technically, I’m not supposed to cut into this till it’s completely cool, but I’m making an exception,” she said. “On account of you’re my favorite nephew.”

They ate their bread in silence, but it was a comfortable kind of silence.

“It’s no fair being a kid,” Nate told her. “Everything important that happens is some grown-up’s decision.”

“I’d take you to Warm Springs myself to see him if I could, but your grandpa would never forgive me.”

“Dad needs us.” He didn’t add the other part: He needed his dad too.

“Try to be patient, Nate. Just give your mom a little time. We’ll work things out, I promise.”

It was close to noon by the time Nate left Aunt Sal and Uncle Harold’s house. There wasn’t much point in going to school, even if he could have gotten there, and he wasn’t in the mood to see his mother yet. He stood on the edge of their land and looked out over the flat expanse of snow. More had fallen since the shooting, which had made the search for the gun difficult. Still, he paced the land like a soldier, on the unlikely chance his boot might hit the butt of the rifle or his eye catch sight of the nose sticking up through a snowdrift. He searched that way all afternoon, till the sun hung low on the horizon, when he realized the gun could be lying right on top of a snowbank and still he wouldn’t see it. Then he headed slowly home.