I lie still in the darkness and, without looking around, can see the mound of covers next to me with a gray lump of hair sticking out. She is still, too. I think maybe she’s forgotten about the things downstairs. I think maybe if I just keep quiet she’ll drift back off to sleep. I try that for a while. The gas heater is throwing the shadow of its grille onto the ceiling and it’s leaping around. Through the black window I can see the cold stars in the sky. People are probably getting up somewhere, putting on their housecoats, yawning in their fists, plugging in their Mr. Coffees.

Once I was in the army with a boy from Montana and he got me to go home with him. His parents had a large ranch in the mountains, and they took me in like another son. I’d never seen country like that Big Sky country. Everywhere you looked, all you could see was sky and mountains, and in the winter it snowed. We fed his father’s cows out of a truck, throwing hay out in the snow, and boy those cows were glad to get it. They’d come running up as soon as they heard the truck. But I felt sorry for them, having to live outside in the snow and all, like deer. Once in a while we’d find a little calf that had frozen to death, frozen actually to the ground. I would be sad when that happened, thinking about it not ever getting to see the springtime.

I lie still under the covers in my warm bed and wonder what ever became of that boy.

Then she begins. It’s always soft, and she never raises her voice. But she’s dogcussing me, really putting some venom into it, the same old awful words over and over, until it hurts my ears to hear them. I know she won’t stop until I get up, but I hate to feel that cold floor on my feet. She’s moved my house shoes again, and I don’t want to crawl under the bed looking for them. Spiders are under there, and balls of dust, and maybe even traps set for mice. I don’t ever look under there, because I don’t want to see what I might.

I tell myself that it’s just like diving into cold water. I’ll only feel the shock for a second, and that the way to do it is all at once. So I throw the covers back and I stand up. She stops talking to me. I find the flashlight on the stand beside the bed, where I leave it every night. Who needs a broken leg going down the stairs?