“Nah. He’s been with Martha. Nobody’s seen him. Real mysterious. He goes into town now and then, in the mornings, then right back out there. I guess he’s moved in.”

“With the retard, right?”

“Yeah. She’s a nice lady. But Leon’s . . . I don’t know. It’s real weird.”

“Go fetch me another beer, okay? Then bring your sassy little bottom right back. I want to talk to it.”

She upended her beer and choked down the rest of it, then stood up unsteadily and made again for the truck, stopping to whiz again along the way. When she got back, Leslie was hard as a rock, stroking himself, and she dropped the beers on the blanket and lowered herself onto him.

He sat up, hugging her, rocking back and forth, and whispered in her ear. “Let’s go pay them a visit, okay?”

“Who?” Her breath was coming hard.

“Leon.”

“Leon. Oh, Leon, okay. Oh, God, Leslie.”

They came together, and Leslie pushed her off quickly and stood up. She looked at him, drunkenly, dazed. “C’mon. Get up.” He threw her jeans to her.

“What?”

“We’re going to go pay a visit to Leon.”

She giggled and popped open a beer.

18

CHAPTER 18

The puzzle of Martha took up most of Fern’s waking moments. She tried to fit pieces together—the incident in the barn, the closed doors in the mind, the monster, Sam’s funeral—none of it made sense. Trauma, the doctor said. Shock. How could she go in and out like that? How could she have moments where she looked and acted almost normal, when most of the time she was so . . . so . . . unfeeling? And if she could come out once, why not twice, or more often?

Fern bustled around the house, cleaning. She swept and mopped and dusted and hauled the rugs outside to be whacked and aired. She sat down often: the years had accumulated on her, turning her hair almost totally gray; her face was lined and her small frame hung with rolls of fat. As she worked, she thought of her daughter.

There’s a purpose to all of this, she thought. There’s always a purpose. A purpose for everything, good and bad. At twenty-nine years old, Martha was capable only of basic tasks—cleaning herself, doing some routine chores. She spoke one-syllable words. Most of her vocabulary consisted of grunts and hand gestures, delivered in a moronic fashion. A truce had been set up between Martha and Harry, which kept the house a tolerable place to live. Although it was a constant heartache for Fern, the two ignored each other’s existence entirely. She tried to be grateful. It could be worse.