Betty doesn’t get out of bed for a week. One-Two came up on the bus for the funeral, mostly silent, but helpful in invisible ways. He knows that she doesn’t want assistance and he tries not to anger her. After the hushed funeral where the perplexed relatives gathered, not sure what they were mourning, Betty covered herself with as many quilts as she could arm-load onto the bed and crawled under that colorful patched cave and didn’t budge except to sneak off to the bathroom while One-Two and Boo slept. People came to see how she was doing. Not because they cared for or knew much about Lincoln; he had been a quiet transplant that grew in everyone else’s shadow and escaped notice or serious attention. Betty’s was the real tragedy and they came for her. She refused to see anyone and had One-Two lie for her, telling the visitors that she was sleepy, that she was sleeping. They dead-eyed One-Two, knew that she was doing what she had never allowed herself, in all her life, to do. She was taking it hard.

No one heard from Simon, though the police found the car. He had torched it by dumping chain saw mix on the front seat. The police circled the vehicle looking for tracks but found nothing except the empty red plastic gas can thrown in the weeds by the railroad tracks. They added the car to the long list of burned wrecks they already had.

After the funeral Betty came back, hung up her black dress, dressed in her house clothes and got into bed. One-Two checked on her but she faced away from the door and seemed to be sleeping. He and Boo played cribbage all night. Boo was half loaded and whenever One-Two got up to check on Betty, he came back to find Boo’s pegs had crept up the board and rounded the corner. Boo wouldn’t look at him. Instead he busied himself with the foil wrapper of his cigarettes or palm-swept ashes off the kitchen table. One-Two pretended he didn’t notice.

The next morning One-Two cooked breakfast and tiptoed the tray of steaming eggs and oatmeal in to Betty’s room.

“Leave me alone.”

“Betty. You gotta eat.”

“I don’t gotta do nothin.”

One-Two didn’t argue. He retreated with the cooling food and creaked the door shut. He looked at Boo. Boo shrugged and took the breakfast.

“Food’s food,” he said, as he spooned half the eggs in his mouth. “Food’s food.”

At lunch One-Two cooked venison loin in Crisco. For supper he offered her mac with stewed tomatoes. Each time she waved it away, as if she were shooing summer flies. He knew better than to argue.