Linus tapped his fist against Frank’s arm. “I’ll tell you who’s going to be the cutest girl in town in a few years.”

Frowning slightly, Frank didn’t meet his friend’s shy glance. “She’s gone to see Lew Tivot.”

“At the nuthouse?” Jude said.

“Yeah, gone with his dad.”

“Don’t your dad mind?”

“Bellyached like he always does.”

Jude missed his last bottle. “Well, the boy did try to take his cojones off with a twelve-gauge.”

“You’d need something a damn sight bigger than a twelve-gauge to hit my dad’s cojones.”

His friends didn’t respond to this, and Frank could feel his face burning.

“I’ve got to go.” Releasing a long-held breath, just like his mom, he jumped down off the truck.

Walking away from the quarry, Frank looked back at his two closest friends. He felt disconnected from them. He had drunk too much and not enough; he wasn’t yet free of his mind, as he could be sometimes, like a ghost, with his life behind him. What Linus just said about Annie troubled him. She had such a grown-up face but was so innocent. She loved to sit in the laps of the old men who played poker on the porch of the Franklin Hotel. He would see an old hand resting on her shoulder or knee and it would knot his stomach. He was so mad at his mom. It wasn’t his job to be telling Annie her body could get her into a world of trouble and to stop throwing herself around like an old rag doll. All he wanted was for her to be safe. Safe. He wanted her to stay away from Lew Tivot and that unlucky family, to meet some nice guy in college and have kids. He had already told her that if she didn’t start acting like a lady she would end up like Miss Kelly. There’s no way any man has journeyed to her dark places. He smiled. Arriving at the river, he headed west to Maud and Magnus Garrison’s place. Miss Kelly had taught English at Hickman for over fifteen years, nervous and bone-thin in her bobby socks and squeaky oxfords, with that crazy frizzy hair and those goofy glasses. Not ugly, though, just buried somehow, in nerves, hair, and glasses, flying around town on her bike, singing hymns. But how many married women were any happier? Not his mom.