The day after Colette told him she was pregnant, Paul was sent to the northern part of the state to work on a boiler system at a lumber mill. He was deep in the woods for a week. When he returned, he got her answering machine every time he called. He sat out on his balcony and tried to think what it would be like to have a child, but he could not imagine anything. He remembered holding nieces and nephews, but they were not his. The feeling would not be the same. He figured Colette would call again. It was always better to wait for her. If he did phone, she would call him a stalker. But after two more days he was hungry for the sight and sound of her and he called again. A recording told him the number had been disconnected. His white Ford screamed up the street and soon he was standing outside her apartment, looking through an open door, watching a young black couple put up drapes. She had moved, they told him. No, they didn’t know where. He phoned her bank and listened to the few polite words a woman in Personnel told him.

He had not called home in several days and did so now. His father answered the phone.

“Hey, T-Bub, how’s it going?” His father sounded sleepy.

“All right. Any big news down home?”

There was a moment of silence and he pictured his father staring down at the linoleum, trying to count the countless splotches of meaningless design. “What kind of big news you got in mind?”

“She’s there, right?”

“I saw her up at the hardware. She moved back in with her parents maybe three days ago.”

“She’s not renting a place?”

“I don’t know. I guess she got to find a job first. That’ll be a trick around here nowadays, let me tell you. The economy’s plumb busted.”

“How does she look?” He was not going to ask if she appeared pregnant.

“What you mean?”

Paul sat down on a stool in his kitchen. “Nothing.”

“I got laid off.”

“What?”

“Yeah. The tool company folded up like a Kmart card table and took down my retirement with it.”

“Aw no.”

“Me and Mamma are living off savings right now. It’s rough. We can’t even afford to turn on a window unit.”