He felt a little rush go to his head, then spread downward to his heels. Her touch was what he imagined dope to be like. “What?”

“I don’t mean right now.” She began talking with her hands. “I mean if you can figure something out where we can put our money together, maybe a business or a service, something that could grow, something that would support us so we could buy decent clothes, a car that runs, a meal out once a week.” She moved close and looked at his eyes. “We could try it again.”

He had questions, but none of them seemed to matter in the damp cloud of perfume that captured him. “You telling me if I can start a business, get some money coming in, you’ll marry me again?”

“I’ve thought about it a lot the past few days. You’re different.”

He shook his head. “You said it. I’m not a hundred percent. Sometimes I don’t feel like a man, you know? I’m not making a joke when I say I might not be man enough for you anymore.”

She tilted her head back, parted her lips. “You still don’t get it up?”

He shook his head sadly.

“Not when you think of me?” She touched his ear and he made a face, pulling away slightly.

“I try not to think of you for a bunch of reasons. When you lose something, you got to forget it.”

She put the swing in motion with a little kick. “Even when you wake up with a full bladder in the night, it’s not up?”

“No, I told you. The doctor said he can’t help.”

She leaned into him and slid a hand around his waist. “Look at me.”

He did—at her skin, which was like tan milk nowadays, at her powdery lipstick. He breathed her in. “Why?”

“Because I know you,” she said. “I didn’t before, but I’m beginning to.”

His heart rate rose, and he felt he might be blushing. “Don’t jerk me around, now.”

“Remember the second time I kissed you? In high school?”

“Colette.”

“Close your eyes.” He did, feeling her sweet breath on his face, pouring over his nose and chin, and then something touched his lips like a butterfly’s wingtips dipped in confectioner’s sugar, causing his mouth to open slightly to a hot swipe of tongue. She did it again, and he sat up and opened his eyes wide. He was panting.

“You cured?” she asked.

He threw one leg out in front of him. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

Chapter Eighteen

Eighteen

He stayed up all night working over a yellow tablet, figuring, figuring. He called the whole region the next few days, looking for machinist jobs, but the nearest one was a hundred miles away in New Orleans, downtown, and didn’t pay enough to justify the daily trip over.

A few days later, Colette called and asked if he knew where her father might be. The old man had seemed alert when he got up, so she let him walk to church by himself to say his rosary.