“You told me last night the babysitter had your number so she could get ahold of you,” I say. Then I realize. She’s never had a babysitter. They’ve been locked up in this house the whole weekend, these children.

“Do you want to go or not?” she says.

I look through the curtains on the door. The girls have been watching it, but now they look back down at their toys. The youngest one gets up and walks away, out of sight. The oldest rolls her truck. I look at the woman standing by the door of a new Lincoln, waiting to carry me to a Holiday Inn. She’s ready now, finally. And so am I.

“Come here,” I say.

“What?”

“I said come here.”

“Why? Get in, let’s go.”

I go around the hood after her, slowly. Her face changes.

“What is it?” she says. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Come here,” I say, and I know my face has changed, too.

“Hey,” she says. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing.”

I know what I’m doing. I have my hands on her now, and she can’t pull away. She probably thinks I’m going to kill her, but I’m not. I’m going to keep my hands open this time, and not use my fists. I don’t want to scare the little girls with blood. They would be frightened, and might remember it for the rest of their lives.

Leaving Town

Her name was Myra and I could smell whiskey on her breath. She was nervous, but these days, you don’t know who to let in your house. She’d seen my ad in the paper, she said, and wanted some new doors hung. We talked on the porch for a while and then she let me in.

It looked like she didn’t have anything to do but keep her house clean. She gnawed her fingernails the whole time I was figuring the estimate. She kept opening and closing the top of her robe, like a nervous habit. Both the doors had been kicked out of their locks. The wood was splintered. She needed two new doors, some trim. Maybe two new locks. She wanted new linoleum in her dining room. I gave her a price for the labor and went on home, but I didn’t think I’d get the job.