He told her the drive had been easy and the weather was nice, mostly just to ease the silence, or so it appeared. “And Ronny got a job for the summer. So that’s all taken care of.”

“Well, I’m glad.” She hadn’t the strength to say more and lay back on the pillow, taking slow breaths. She was watching nothing in particular for a moment, as if there was something going on inside her that held her attention.

“Do you need anything, Maylene?” Mr. Nickelsen asked.

She came back from her distance and said, “No, honey. You set down. You been going with me all day.”

Mr. Nickelsen sighed and settled into his recliner, which faced in the direction of the bed, almost as if he were in the studio audience and she were the program. He was grateful to be told to sit. A sense, watching him, that he agreed he deserved a rest and was pleased she said so. “I could sure enough get off my feet. Lord a mercy.”

“He has been so good to me today,” Mrs. Nickelsen said.

“I’ve been a fecking angel,” Mr. Nickelsen said, glancing at his son.

“Hush that language,” she said.

“Fecking is not a bad word. I made it up.”

“Well, it sure sounds like a bad word.”

He waved his hand at her but he was chuckling, as if it tickled him to be scolded, made him feel as if he knew better who and where he was. When the laughter was done, though, he had an air of shock around him, a creature at the edge of a blast, something ripped away.

Ben leaned close, pressing his lips to his mom’s forehead. “I told Ronny about our great day on Sunday.”

“Wasn’t that some mess?” she asked, looking at Ronny. “You would have thought I was doing something wrong wanting to sit with my son in my own house.”

“Son, you can sure pick them sometimes,” Mr. Nickelsen said, shaking his head, blowing his nose into a mostly clean handkerchief.

Ben gave him a sharp look and then cracked a grin. “I know it, Dad. I was just talking about that with somebody.”

“We’d have horsewhooped a girl like that when my daddy was alive.”

“Hush that, Harley,” Mrs. Nickelsen said, but she was laughing.

“You can sure pick them,” Mr. Nickelsen repeated.

“Now, I’ve liked some of Ben’s girls all right,” Mrs. Nickelsen said.

Her husband snorted.

“I have,” she said, her voice thin and soft; and her husband and son laughed harder.

“Don’t shake my bed, now, son.”

In the midst of the laughter Mrs. Nickelsen grew pale and sat up slowly, hands on her midsection. She caught Ben’s eye and gestured to him; she couldn’t speak but pointed to a pan on the table by the bed. He gave it to her and stood next to her. Ronny saw the look of fear on Mr. Nickelsen and watched him turn away. Ben held the pan, helping her keep back what was left of her hair. It was hard to watch, her pained body, the racking, heaving movement, the sense that it embarrassed her. The room had gone quiet. Ronny said, “I thought it looked like rain when we were driving up.”