She has gone somewhere. I sit on the couch. The girls play with their trucks and croon softly to each other little songs without words, melodies made up in their own fantastic little minds. They move smooth as eels, boneless, their little arms and legs dimpled with fat.

“I’m ready,” she says. I look around. She has her purse. She seems brisk, efficient. She has her keys. It’s like she’s suddenly decided to stop slumming. She has on trim black slacks, gold toeless shoes with low heels, a short mink jacket. Diamonds glitter in the lobes of her ears. Her breasts hang heavy and full in the lowcut shirt, and I know that tonight she will deny me nothing. She’s smiling. She takes my arm as I stand up and she kisses me again. The children watch this puzzle in soundless wonder, this strange man kissing Mommy.

“Okay, girls, we’ll be back after while,” she says. They don’t look up, don’t appear to hear. “Sherry?” she says. “We’re gone.” She must be talking to somebody else in the house, somebody I can’t see, the babysitter, I guess. “Sherry?” she says. “Did you hear me?”

“Let’s go,” she says to me, and she starts toward the door. She’s searching for a key on her key ring.

“Bye, girls,” I say. The oldest one gives me a solemn look, a dignified nod.

“Stay in here, now,” she says. “Don’t mess with the stove.” We’re halfway out the door when it hits me.

“Wait a minute,” I say. She’s locking the door, locking the children into the house. I hear the lock click. “Where’s your babysitter?”

“They’re all right,” she says. “We won’t be gone long anyway. Not over a few hours.”

“Wait a minute,” I say. “You gonna leave them alone? Here?”

I’ve got my hand on her arm, I’m turning her to look at me in the lighted carport. She looks down at my hand and then up at me, surprised. She steps away.

“Well, it’s not gonna hurt anything. They’ll be all right.”

“All right?” I say. “They’re just little kids. I thought you said you had a babysitter.”

“I couldn’t get one,” she says. “Now come on. Let’s go. They’ve stayed by themselves before.” She’s going toward the car. I stand watching her dumbly, like a dumbass, like the dumbass I am.

“What if something happens, though?” I say. “What if the fucking house was to catch on fire?”

She stops and looks back. She holds her face up slightly, puts one hand on her hip. “Do you want to go or not?” she says.