Bev held the door open for Jack while dogs came to wag tails and sniff until Bev shooed them outside. “We got coffee. Want some?”

“That’d be nice.”

They sat at the kitchen table. A fire in the potbelly stove sent heat across the floor and walls. On the cast-iron stovetop, coffee steamed from a pot next to an empty pan, where eggs had fried. Washed garments hung on a clothesline strung from the room’s corners. Socks and Bev’s lace underthings looked near dry, but heavier coats and pants still dripped water. At the front door, a shotgun stood ready. Jack knew that if he looked to the rear door, there’d be another waiting there. Centered on the table sat an African violet atop a crocheted doily, and scattered around the violet were a pistol and a deck of tarot cards and an empty whiskey bottle. A mason jar of pot rested beside the whiskey.

“Red’s out back smokin’ deer for jerky,” Bev said. “But I bet he heard you come up. He’ll be in.”

They sipped hot coffee. Shadows lay in the house’s chill corners, and inside the windows, water beaded in droplets to trickle down glass. Fog the color of dishwater curled in wisps outside the dirty panes.

“How’s your ma?” Bev asked.

The rear door opened. Uncle Red stood in the doorway holding a knife, the blade stained dark and glistening. He looked at Bev. “Coffee.”

Bev scooted from her chair.

Red walked to the kitchen sink and ran the knife under the tap and rinsed his hands. He was dressed in a thick parka and field pants stuffed into Red Wing boots, and on his head he wore a scrap of black wool tied at the back like a scarf. He was fierce and redbearded, a veteran of old battles, his face hewn of bone and his long hair matted and his muscles lean. Red was Dad’s elder and had been a fine meth chef years ago until a rival dealer laid hands on him with an axe. They’d meant to skin his scalp clean off, but in the end Red struck a deal. Folks didn’t speak of that grisly skirmish. Red never cooked again, but some whispered that he still sold product to buyers who kept mouths shut. The axe had carved a savage swathe across his skull on the right side, and the hair there was mostly gone. He wore the black wool to cover the disfigurement.

Red put the knife on the table and sat. “You ain’t at school. Why’s that?”

“Doyle came by. That sheriff. He said the bank’s gonna auction the house unless we pay what’s owin’. I took Matty and moved us out.”

“Huh. Where to?”

“That’s my business.”

Red’s lip twitched and formed a line. “Where’s your ma?”

“Dead. I buried her in the yard.”