“Your car?”

He rolled over. “I don’t need it,” he said.

I was wide awake, already thinking about the things I had to remember to do at the diner. “Are you sure?” I said.

Bear laughed. “It’s just a car.”

Buddy knew I was up. He nosed the side of the bed, and I got dressed and let him out the back door before I left. I filled his water bowl and gave him a scoop of food, which he plowed through, his head wagging from side to side, kibbles flying. I wanted coffee but didn’t know how to use the machine Bear had. It was like a glass-and-metal sculpture. The only coffee he had was whole, oily beans that he ground fresh for every pot.

I took the key off the hook. It was on a short lanyard with a bear print on it.

I told Buddy to be a good boy. I knew he would bound back to the bed with Bear.

I thought, this is not my life.

After work, I drove home. There were things in Bear’s car I didn’t know how to use—the sunroof, the heated seats, the electronic adjustments for the seats and mirrors. I sat for a long time moving the seat in tiny increments with a lever on the side. The radio was on North Country Public Radio.

I looked in the mirror before I went inside. I felt different at a cellular level, in my spine, in my bones. I wondered if someone might be able to see it.

But then I jumped out of my skin and whacked the mirror with my hand. I must have looked like an old cartoon cat where the skeleton startles outside the fur.

A sound boomed that set my teeth on edge and filled my mouth with metal like the tip of a pencil. My ears fuzzed over with ringing.

Then it happened again.

I watched a flush of birds scatter over the top of our house, but I couldn’t hear them. I just saw their black wings, the sway of branches above the leaves, falling down in their wake.

I went inside the house, working my jaw, blinking hard to try to get my ears open, but it was no use. My hearing was white noise. My mother stood facing the kitchen window, which was loose in its casement like it had been pried out, and Birdie was screaming.

My mother swung around with the shotgun and pointed it at me. I dropped Bear’s keys and held up my hands, shouting, “Mom!”

She butted it against my chest, hard, the metal nose of the gun against bone.

What if it kills you both?

“Don’t yell at me,” she said.

Birdie let out a shriek and ran for my legs, gripped my knees, her face pressed into my thigh.

“Mom,” I said, and swallowed. I put my hand in Birdie’s hair. I tried to guide the gun away from my heart. I had arrived in a strange car. I was lucky she hadn’t shot me.