I probably could have taken right back up where we left off. I was tempted to. I don’t think I’ve touched a woman who was that hot ever. I thought when women got older they didn’t care anything about sex. Or maybe she was just trying to reach out to somebody. She didn’t come right out and say it, but just from the things she said, I could tell she hadn’t slept with her ex-husband for years. I felt so goddamn sorry for her. But I didn’t want her to feel sorry for me. I didn’t want to work anymore, though. I just wanted to load my shit up and go somewhere. I thought about asking her if she wanted to go drink a few beers with me, but really I wanted to be by myself. I had to decide what I was going to do. I knew I couldn’t keep going the way I was going.

I asked him what he was going to do and he said he didn’t know. He said he’d keep on working. He was hoping she’d grow out of it. He said he didn’t mean to dump all his problems on me. But he said the little girl would sit on the floor and hold her arms up to him when he came in from work and beg him to take her. He said he thought she sat on the floor all day because her mother wouldn’t help her try to walk or even pick her up. He said all she did was read magazines and watch TV. I don’t know how he could have gotten mixed up with somebody like that. I don’t know why he couldn’t have gotten somebody who deserved him.

I told her that if she didn’t care I’d just leave the doors and finish up the next night, or the next. I had to get away. I hated to just leave her wall like that, but there wasn’t any way I could finish hanging the door that night. She said it would be okay, that I could come back and finish it whenever I wanted to. She said she never had any company and nobody would see it anyway.