Nah, she says, grinning. It’s the sweet scent of celibacy. Jo cackles. Xie’s flinch hidden in the sockets of his makeup. From far off the sound of a coyote. Do you hear that? They do. Going still. Jo howls, head back, and Leni and Xie join her, first for fun, then for real, louder and louder, until Jo’s phone rings. She answers. What, she says, then rolls her eyes, hanging up. It’s my dad. He says they can hear us all the way at the house. She lifts her middle finger above her head. Can you hear this? she shouts. Leni snickers, pushing on her arm. Jo puts her head in Leni’s lap, reaches to touch first Leni’s pointy chin, then Xie’s white cheek. I love you and you. Closing her eyes. The coyotes sing. They sing back.

P. glows so strong in the morning, at the window, making signs on the glass. Check the body to make sure. Nothing hurt or broken. How long can it last, this way, outside the cloistered air of the cabinet? A lifetime, at least. Wrap the sheet around the body. Dress. He makes bread, then cooks the oats that have been left to soak overnight, ready for his father, who eats them with an entire package of fake bacon. Can you die if you eat too much soy? Erik had asked once, faux-casual; Xie just shrugged. Probably. Goes out to the garden. The broccoli ready to harvest, the cauliflower, big creamy heads cradled in green. He runs his hands over them, lifting the leaves, checking for decay, mold, insects, disease, the same as he checks the body every morning. Moore probably does the same, every day, walking his rows of mink, making sure nothing will spoil those silver furs. Another kind of farmer. Deer surround the house. Flicker of ears in the fog. He struggles with the stupid hose. Glitter of dew in the webs clinging to the eaves. The morning sun on P.’s teeth. In the attic he wraps the body in a blanket, pulls the sheets from the bed, and carries them to the garden to shake free all the dust from the body, settling finer than ash on the pumpkins. When the sheets are clean he hangs them in the cold sun. The only sound the pins creaking and the wind ruffling the crowns of the trees and the water smoothing the stones. Xie’s sleeves pushed to the elbow. P. stroking the tender flesh at the inside of his forearms. How soft you are here. How like silk. The sheets pressing against Xie’s legs. Immense stillness. The sun so strong and the air so clean and the smell of the sheets and earth and turning leaves. Xie closing his eyes. There are eight beds now and two cloches for the carrots, parsley, radishes; all of it his doing. Rows of jars in the pantry; counters covered with chickpea seedlings. P. chewing a stalk of grass. Thumbing the wrinkled leaves of the mint. Everything feels something, knows something. The heads of the nasturtiums nodding in the breeze. Every stalk and leaf stirred. Soaking up. And P. in the mint, Are you not also a child of God?