A Boy of Good Breeding

four

“I think he’s dead,” Summer Feelin’ whispered.

“I doubt it. His lips are moving,” Knute whispered back.

“Say something, Mom.”

Knute cleared her throat. “Excuse me?”

Hosea, for the second time that afternoon, lurched forward in his chair and banged his scarred palm against the edge of his desk, sending a few paper clips skittering off the side.

“Caught you sleeping on the job, eh? Ha ha,” Knute said. Summer Feelin’ stood beside Knute, holding her hand and staring at Hosea, who was now tugging at his shirt with one hand and smoothing the already smooth surface of his desk with the other.

“Oh no, oh no, I wasn’t sleeping. I was just, thinking, so how are you, Knutie? Hi there, uh … Autumn … uh, May?”

“Summer Feelin’. Say hi, S.F.”

“Hi, S.F.”

“Ha, ha, that’s her little joke.”

“Oh yes, that’s, uh …” Hosea felt his hand go to his shirt again but this time he stopped himself from tugging by lunging towards the floor and picking up the fallen paper clips.

“Well, I just thought I’d take you up on that job offer, remember, when you came by to visit my folks you mentioned that—”

“Yes. Yes, I remember. I do, well, I will have work for you. Quite a bit of work, actually, very soon. Well, what I’ll need you to do, mainly, is, you know, answer phones, write letters, make appointments, that sort of thing. Generally, keep the place in order.”

Hosea hadn’t expected Knute to show up quite so soon. Actually, he hadn’t expected her to show up at all. And now he was having a hard time explaining what it was he wanted from her. He could have kicked himself for not being prepared. He needed a young, attractive woman at his side, plain and simple, if he was going to impress the Prime Minister. Look at all the politicians. They all had attractive aides and writers and handlers, not to mention young, beautiful wives. Lorna would do just fine as the wife, Hosea figured. Granted, she wasn’t that young, and she did stoop slightly and forget to do little things like lay down her collar or straighten her necklace so that the diamond Hosea had given her was often draped over her shoulder instead of hanging down towards her cleavage, but Hosea loved her and was confident she would pass muster with the Prime Minister. Who knows, by then she might even be living with him in Algren? And Knute would be his lovely and capable assistant, provided she wore something other than torn jeans and police boots. Hosea could picture it now. There he’d be with Lorna on one side and Knute on the other, waiting for John Baert to emerge from the limousine, to offer Hosea his hand and—

“So when do I start?” asked Knute. She could sense Hosea was nervous about this whole thing. Summer Feelin’ was trying to drag her out of the room so she was trying to get it over with as fast as she could.

“Start. Well. Tomorrow. Tomorrow morning. Say about ten o’clock.”

“Okay,” said Knute. “Sounds good.”

“Oh, Knute?”

“Yeah?”

“How’s your father’s health?”

“Oh, comme ci comme ça, you know …”

“Hmmm … Do you think his heart is getting stronger?”

“I think so, yeah. He’s learning to juggle.”

“Juggle? Really?” For a brief moment Hosea was nine again and he heard Tom’s voice. “Run, Hosea, run!” It seemed like just the other day. “Juggling, well, what do you know?” said Hosea.

By then Summer Feelin’ had dragged Knute out of the room and halfway down the hall. Knute managed to yell over her shoulder to Hosea who was still sitting at his desk tapping a paper clip against his teeth, “See ya tomorrow!”

The snow was melting and the sun was hot, so Knute and Summer Feelin’ walked home with their jackets tied around their waists and this was enough to make S.F. flap. Normally when she flapped in public Knute tried to calm her down. She’d take her hand or rub her back or say her name or get S.F. to look at her and tell her what she was so excited about. But this time Knute thought she’d just let S.F. get it out of her system. They stood right in front of the big windows of the Wagon Wheel Café and S.F. stood on one spot, her head back, mouth open, and flapped like she was about to lift right off the ground. Knute was excited, too. The world is full of possibility at that precise moment when winter jackets are taken off for the first time in Manitoba. Things were okay. Living with Tom and Dory, working for Hosea, hanging out with S.F. She wouldn’t be featured in Vanity Fair, but …

A couple of men in the café noticed S.F. and pointed at her and stared for a while and then went back to their coffee.

When she and S.F. got back to the house they saw Combine Jo lying on the ground in front of the front door. Tom was sitting in a lawn chair beside her wearing a tuque and a down-filled jacket and reading a Dick Francis novel.

“Hello, ladies, how’d the interview go?” asked Tom.

“What the hell is she doing here?” said Knute.

“Do you mean what the hell is she doing here?” said Tom, “or what the hell is she doing here?”

S.F. crawled onto Tom’s lap and peered down at Combine Jo. “Is she dead?” she asked Tom, who looked at Knute and winked.

“No, she’s just resting.” Tom put his head back and swallowed a couple of times for the benefit of S.F. who had, recently, become intrigued with his Adam’s apple and liked to follow its course with her fingertips. “Aack, not so hard, S.F. I’ll choke.” He bulged his eyes and Summer Feelin’ giggled.

“This is ridiculous,” Knute said and went inside the house. She had to step over Combine Jo’s right arm, which was stretched out as a pillow for her head. She had almost made it into the house. Her bloated fingers grazed the sill of the door and, as Knute stepped over her, lifted slightly as if she were waving.

Knute stormed into the house and flung her jacket onto the floor.

“Why the hell is Combine Jo here and what the hell is she doing lying on the ground?” she yelled in the general direction of the den, where Dory had been painting for the past few days.

“Oh, Knutie?” came Dory’s reply. “I’m glad you’re here. Jo fainted and she’s too heavy for Tom and me to move so I just sent Tom out to sit beside her and keep an eye on her ‘til she woke up. You know, it’s warm enough out there today for her to lie there, and anyway he’d likely have another heart attack if he tried to lift her, you know, and my back isn’t—”

“She did not faint, Mother, she passed out. She’s drunk. I’m not a child. I know when somebody is drunk. You know, I’ve been drunk myself, I realize when something like this is happening.”

By now Dory had come out to the kitchen. She was covered in paint and wearing her SoHo T-shirt. Knute was sitting on the counter, swinging her legs like a kid and drinking milk directly from the carton.

“I’m not hauling her inside if that’s what you think,” she sputtered through a mouthful of milk. “Forget it.”

“Okay, okay, Knutie, calm down, okay? Just calm down.” Dory put her hands on Knute’s thighs and looked at her imploringly in very much the same way Knute looked at S.F. when she flapped.

Just then Combine Jo came thrashing through the door holding S.F. in her arms with Tom behind her, invisible except for his arms moving wildly around her trying to make sure she didn’t drop S.F. or smash any part of her against the walls of the front entrance. As Combine Jo and S.F. ricocheted from wall to wall one of Jo’s sleeves caught on the hall mirror, which yanked it right off, sending bits of glass and plaster flying and Tom, still in his tuque, started doing a sort of jig to avoid stepping on it, saying, “Dory? Dory? Dory, you gotta help me here.”

“Goddamn it!” Combine Jo slurred as one of her feet involuntarily slid out in front of her like Fred Astaire and then began to plow her way to the living room couch. “Christ, girl, hang on! We’re almost there!” she told S.F., who answered meekly, “I am. I am.” By this time Tom and Dory were flanking her like two tugs bringing in the Queen Mary, and Knute was frozen to the spot, livid.

“Ho!” Combine Jo belched out as she fell onto the couch. S.F. kind of dropped beside her and then attempted to climb off the couch, but before she could escape Combine Jo grabbed her by the shirt and said, “Not so fast, you little devil. I want to have a good look at you.”

At this point Knute intervened. “Leave her alone, Jo. S.F., come here, sweetie.”

“S.F., come here, sweetie,” Combine Jo mimicked, moving her head back and forth. “Jesus, Knuter, I’m not gonna kill the kid. When the hell are you gonna bury the hatchet, eh, Knute? I’ve apologized until I’m fucking blue in the face.”

“Coffee, Jo?” Dory asked.

“Thanks, honey.” Combine Jo sat on the couch. She was wearing giant Hush Puppies and a tent dress with tiny anchors all over it. She stared at S.F. “God, she’s an angel, Knute. She’s an angel made in heaven. Aw c’mon, let me have her. Let her sit with me for a second. Doncha want to, eh, Summer Feelin’?”

“No.” S.F. tightened her grip on Knute’s hand. Tom was busy sweeping up the broken glass in the hallway. He asked S.F. if she would like to do a puzzle with him in the den and she nodded and flew out of the room.

“Lookit her go. Runnin’ like the goddamn dickens. How old is she, anyway, Knuter? Five, six?”

“Four.”

Combine Jo sighed heavily. “I heard you two were in town, Knute. I had to come and see you. See her. You know I’ve got no way of getting to the city to see you. How was I gonna see you and S.F.?”

“Nobody invited you.”

At this Combine Jo slapped her thigh and barked, “Ha! You haven’t changed at all, Knute. Not one iota. Still a spark plug, you crazy kid. You and I should have a drink together some day. But, you know I like your spunk. I’ve always loved your spunk. And you know what? So did Max. Of all Max’s girlfriends you were my goddamn favourite and that’s no lie. The rest were pffhh … In fact, that’s another reason why I’m here.”

Dory handed Combine Jo her coffee and immediately Jo spilled a few drops on her anchor dress. “Whoops. Shit.” Then Jo did it again. “I’ll be goddamned!” she said. Dory attempted a tortured smile. Knute stood a ways away with her arms folded across her chest. The thought of a drink wasn’t a bad one. But not with her. Knute looked at her and raised her eyebrows placidly in an unfriendly gesture, egging her on.

“Max called me. Finally, the little bastard, and he’s coming home. He’s broke and tired of Europe. Who wouldn’t be? He’s coming back, Knuter. And he wants to see his goddamned daughter!”

“Are you serious?” Marilyn muttered over the phone later that evening. “That’s what she said? Just like that?”

“Yeah. Can you believe it?” Knute was soaking in a tub of hot water and talking to Marilyn on Tom’s new cordless phone. Tom and Dory and S.F. were all in bed together eating popcorn and watching TV. She could hear an occasional laugh track through the bathroom wall.

“I can believe that he’s broke,” said Marilyn.

“Some things never change,” Knute answered.

“What are you gonna do?” she asked.

“I don’t know. What can I do? I can’t keep him from coming back. I’m not gonna leave just because he’s coming back. And besides, he’s not a terrible person or anything, he’s just completely hopeless. I don’t know.”

“Well, he’s an asshole, Knute. He knew you were pregnant and he took off.”

“Well, I kind of told him to get lost.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean get lost, get lost like for five years. It means just fuck off for a while and don’t bug you.”

“Yeah, but he might have figured that out himself if he wasn’t such a slave to his mother. She’s the one who told him his life would be ruined forever if he became a father and stayed in Algren.”

“Well, that’s probably true.”

“Thanks, Marilyn.”

“Well, for Christ’s sake. He’d have to be a total moron to believe her.”

“Yeah, shhh, I know. I know. Actually I think he just wanted to leave. He couldn’t deal with it. I don’t think he ever listened to his mom.”

“Oh, so he’s Leonard Cohen all of a sudden, moping around Europe in a big black coat all grim and sad-faced because it’s what he has to do? Gimme a break. So now you’re just gonna forgive him and let him see S.F. and waltz right back into your life, just like that? Have some self-respect, for Pete’s sake, Knute.”

“Yeah, but what about S.F.? He is her father, after all. If he wants to see her, shouldn’t I let him? Just because he’s a moron doesn’t mean she wouldn’t want to see him, right? She knows about him and everything. I mean, she can decide later if she hates him enough never to see him again. I can’t really decide that for her, you know.”

“Why not? Lots of parents do that. If you think she’s better off without him in her life, then that’s that. You decide.”

“Well, you let Ron see Josh even though Ron’s an idiot.”

“Yeah, but he pays me, Knute. You know, child support? I’m forced to let him see Josh.”

“But don’t you think you’d want Josh to know Ron even if he wasn’t paying you?”

“Absolutely not. Ron’s a twit. Josh can do better than him for a father.”

“Well, Marilyn, that doesn’t make any sense. He is his father. You’re the one who could have done better than him for a boyfriend. There’s nothing you can do about him being Josh’s dad. And just because he’s a twit doesn’t mean Josh doesn’t like him.”

“Hmm, I don’t know, Knute. You know what I think? I think you’re still hot for Max.”

“Wrong-o.”

“You are! I can tell. I can always tell. You definitely are still hot for Mighty Max.”

“Oh God, Marilyn. I don’t even know him anymore.”

“Yeah? So what’s your point? Welcome to—”

S.F. came into the bathroom and asked if she could join Knute in the tub. Marilyn heard S.F. asking and said, “Oh God, don’t you hate that?”

“Yeah. I have to add more cold. Okay, I gotta go.”

“You know what you have to do, Knute?” said Marilyn.

“What.”

“You have to learn how to make pudding. It says on the box you have to stir constantly, constantly, and it takes a good twenty or thirty minutes before the stuff boils. So if S.F. is bugging you, you know, asking for this and that, you say, Sorry ma’am, do you want pudding or not? I cannot leave this pudding for a second.”

“Yeah?” said Knute.

“Yeah,” said Marilyn, “it’s great. I make tons of pudding, and while I stir I read. Thin, light books ’cause you only have one hand to hold ’em. Josh can’t do a thing about it, so he actually amuses himself and I get a decent break. All hell can break loose around me. I don’t care, I’m making pudding.”

“That’s a great idea, Marilyn,” said Knute. “What happens when he gets sick of pudding?”

“I don’t know, I hadn’t thought of that. I’ll think of something when that time comes, though. Something less fattening.”

“Yeah. Marilyn, you have to come and visit me here soon, okay?”

“Definitely,” said Marilyn, and they put off saying good-bye for a while and then eventually hung up.

That night just before Knute went to bed she watched S.F. sleep. A strand of hair was stuck in her mouth. Knute removed it. S.F. put it back in. She was beautiful. An angel made in heaven, as Combine Jo had said. God, thought Knute, that woman was S.F.’s paternal grandmother! Not that it mattered. In Knute’s opinion, Combine Jo was more interested in her next drink and her piles of money than she was in S.F. Or even Max.

Dory had told Knute, when she was pregnant with S.F., that Combine Jo hadn’t always been the way she was now. Years and years ago, she had been the wife of the wealthiest farmer in Algren. She had been beautiful and serene. Before Max was even a year old, she had had an affair with a farmer from Whithers. One stormy spring night she had stayed at her lover’s place under the pretext that the roads were too treacherous to get back to Algren. The next day she returned home to find Max, her baby, just about frozen to death, lying unconscious and bruised on the kitchen floor — her husband beside him, dead and covered with logs. Apparently he had had an epileptic seizure while trying to fire up the woodstove, dropped Max, whom he had been carrying in one arm, fallen down and died right there. After that Combine Jo started eating and drinking and swearing and generally raising hell all over Algren, until she became too fat and alcoholic to easily make her way out of her house.

With all the money left to her and Max in her husband’s will, and by selling most of the farm, Combine Jo was able to hire enough people to look after Max when he was little, and bring her food and booze. She got the name Combine Jo not because she was as big as one, but because each spring she would take her husband’s old combine out of the barn and drive it up and down Algren’s Main Street as a personal spring-seeding celebration. Dory thought that Combine Jo might carry a sawed-off rifle in the cab of the combine, but nobody knew for sure. She would career down the street, one hand on the wheel, the other clamped around her bottle of Wild Turkey. She would then drive the combine to her husband’s grave, often right up over it, and enjoy a toast with him. She’d pour half a bottle of bourbon into the grass on top of his grave, light a cigarette and prop it up, as best she could, in the grass around where his head would have been, six feet under, and then she’d lie there beside him, where she felt she belonged.

Combine Jo had loved her husband deeply. The affair had been a stupid distraction, a way to pass the time while her husband farmed night and day. Knute wondered if Jo had ever given Max any advice on love. Maybe she’d told Max to leave town when she found out Knute was pregnant. Maybe it wasn’t his idea at all. Maybe Jo gave Max a million bucks to leave. Maybe I’m a complete idiot, thought Knute.

If she thought he had left because Jo had told him to, she was fooling herself. And her telling him to get lost the day that she found out she was pregnant and he hadn’t seemed happy enough — happy at all, really — wouldn’t have been enough for him to leave, either. Knute was always telling him to get lost, knowing he’d come back.

No, Max had left because he’d wanted to leave. And now he was coming back because he wanted to come back, and he wanted to see his “goddamned daughter.”

“Well,” Knute concluded, “Fuck him.”

That same evening, Lorna had come out to Algren on the bus to visit Hosea. When Hosea got home from work he had listened to her message on the machine. And then he had listened to it again, sitting on his couch, still in his coat and dripping water from his boots on to the living room carpet. “Hi, Hose,” she’d said. “Are you there? If you’re there, pick up the phone.” Hosea smiled. Doesn’t she know me better? he thought. Hosea had nearly killed himself a couple of times running for the phone when he’d heard Lorna’s voice coming over the machine. “Okay, I guess you’re not there.” Lorna wouldn’t call Hosea at work. She used to, at the beginning of their relationship, but after a while she had told him he always sounded distracted at work and she didn’t need to call long distance to get the cold shoulder. Hosea had pleaded with her to understand. He was the mayor, after all, of Canada’s smallest town. He had work to do. He loved her more than life itself but … But no, Lorna was unmoved. And since then had called him only at home. “Our office is closed tomorrow so I thought I’d come on the bus and stay over and you could take me home the next day or the next, or I’ll just take the bus again. Okay. Whatever. You’re really not there, are you? Hmmm. Okay, call me, but if you get this message after six o’clock, don’t bother because I’ll be on the bus. I should—”

Damn, thought Hosea. He still hadn’t installed one of those endless-tape answering machines. She should what? he thought. She always seemed to forget about the length of the tape. Sometimes she’d call back — sometimes two or three times — and just carry on with her monologue, entirely unruffled by the fact that she’d been abruptly cut off. This time she hadn’t called back to continue. Why not? Details like this could give Hosea chest pain. Did it mean she was angry at being cut off? Or if not angry, then (and this was worse), oh God, offended? Had she been suddenly incapacitated by an aneurism? Or was she simply in a hurry to get on the bus to see her sugarbaby, her man, Hosea? Hosea would just have to wait and see. But oh, how he hated to wait. Why hadn’t old Granny Funk stuck her bobby pin in the book of Job when they were naming him, instead of at Hosea? Hosea! Could Lorna really love a man she called Hose? He glanced at his watch, a Christmas present from Lorna before she knew him well enough to know that he was never late for anything, and in fact already owned five working watches. Okay, if she takes the 6:15 bus, thought Hosea, she’ll be here at 7:15. That gave him exactly half an hour to get things ready, maybe call the doctor and still make it to the bus depot to pick Lorna up. Hosea decided to make the call first.

“Dr. Bonsoir?”

“Hosea?”

“Yes, Doctor, Hosea Funk here. Yes, I know. Well then, okay. Any news over there?”

“News?” said the doctor.

“Yes, news. Has Mrs. Epp—”

“No, she has not. Hosea, I’m a busy man. I’m sure you understand.”

“Why yes, yes, indeed I do, but then, quickly, before I go, how’s, uh … Leander?”

“Do you mean Mr. Hamm?”

“Yes, yes, that’s the one. How’s he doing? Not good. I see. Any prognosis or—”

“No, I do not have a prognosis, nor would I be giving it out over the phone to … non-family members.”

“I see, but—”

“Hosea?”

“Yes?”

“I have to see to a patient.”

“Of course, well then, thank-you, Doctor.”

“Mmmmm,” said the doctor in reply.

“Au revoir, Doctor,” said Hosea cheerfully.

“Good-bye, Hosea.”

Well, of course he was busy, he was a doctor, thought Hosea. No problem. He’d go back to the hospital and see for himself how things were. Hosea checked his watch. Lorna would be pulling up in front of the pool hall, which doubled as a bus depot, in a few minutes. He grabbed two old tablecloths of Euphemia’s. One he threw over the dining room table and the other he draped over his shoulder. He lugged his exercise bike downstairs and put it into its usual hiding place, behind the furnace next to the hot water tank. He yanked the tablecloth that was on his shoulder and threw it over the bike. One time Lorna had said, “You know, Hosea, you’re in great shape for a man your age and you don’t even care. That’s what I like about you.”

Since then, Hosea had pedalled furiously every morning on his bicycle to nowhere — as Euphemia had called it — and had hid it in the basement each time Lorna came to visit.

Hosea checked his watch. Damn, he thought. The tape!

“You’re late,” said Lorna.

“I know. I’m sorry,” said Hosea. He couldn’t tell Lorna the real reason he was late, and he hadn’t had time to make one up, so he stood there, thumping his breast with his big green Thinsulate glove (because he couldn’t get a proper pincer grip to tug), and hoping her love for him would sweep this latest infraction right under the rug. It had taken Hosea twenty minutes to set his new Emmylou Harris tape to exactly the right song. Fast forward, oops too far — rewind. Too far, fast forward again. Darn! Too far again! He had planned to rush into the house ahead of Lorna and push play on his tape deck so that as she entered the house she would hear Emmylou singing “Two More Bottles of Wine,” at which point Hosea would produce two bottles of wine, red for the heart, one in each hand, and they would sit down and have a drink.

None of this happened. The tape hadn’t played when he’d pushed play because he had, in his haste, unplugged the tape deck to plug in his tri-light desk lamp to create more of a mood. He hadn’t been able to find his corkscrew for the wine and so, while Lorna roamed around the house switching lights on and wondering out loud why it was so dark in there, he had rammed the cork down the neck of one of the bottles with his ballpoint pen and then spilled the wine all over himself when it splurched out around the cork. He used the tea towel hanging on the fridge handle to wipe up the wine and then, pushing the cork way down with his pen, managed to pour two glasses without much spillage.

He brought the wine to Lorna and sat down beside her on the couch. “Oh thanks, Hose,” she said.

“Lorna?” said Hosea. “Are you mad at me?”

Lorna shifted around to look at him. “Why would I be mad at you?”

Hosea jerked his head towards the answering machine. “Well, because of your message. You didn’t call back to finish it. Usually you do.”

Lorna put her wine down and took Hosea’s hand in hers. She slung one of her legs over his and stroked the top of his hand with her thumb. “Hosea,” she said, “you really are something, you know that?”

Hosea used his remaining free hand to flatten her hand over his and stop her from stroking. He longed for his glass of wine, but now his hands were busy. He smiled at Lorna. “You’re something, too,” he said.

“I suppose I am,” said Lorna.

Hosea shifted slightly and smiled again. He stared at their hands, tangled together and resting on Lorna’s thigh. He noticed that the middle knuckles on Lorna’s fingers were wider than the other parts of her fingers, whereas his own fingers tapered to a point. He wished his fingers were more like Lorna’s.

“Hmmmm,” murmured Lorna.

“Lorna?” said Hosea.

“Yeah?”

“Are you mad at me?”

“No, Hosea, I am not mad at you. Look at me here. I’m trying to get closer to you. Jesus, Hose, can’t you figure it out?”

“But what about the message on the—”

“I was in a hurry, okay? I love you, I’m not mad at you. I love you.”

“Well, what were you going to say, I should what, you should what? You know, you were going to say you should do something and I …”

“I was going to say, ‘I should go if I’m gonna make the bus.’ That’s what I should do, go. Okay? Go so I could make the bus to get to you!”

Lorna sighed, removed her hands from Hosea’s, and used one of them to reach for her glass of wine.

“Well, now you’re mad then, aren’t you?” asked Hosea.

“Hosea, what the hell is your problem? Why do you have to derail every romantic moment in our lives with your paranoid worrying? Do you do it on purpose? Maybe you don’t love me, maybe you’re mad at me and you don’t know how to tell me, and you turn it around to make it look like I’m mad at you and then you won’t feel so bad, and you’ll be the martyr. Great. Now I am mad at you.”

“I knew it,” said Hosea. “And I do love you.” He looked at his hands, at his tapered fingers. They were pudgy, he thought. Why? The rest of him wasn’t fat. Could he lose weight in his fingers? They looked childish to him. He slipped them under his thighs for a few seconds, then pulled them up and folded them behind his head. Just a minute ago Lorna had been stroking one of his hands and he had wanted her to quit. Now he wanted her to continue, more than anything. He reached for his glass of wine.

“No, you do not know it, Hose, I’m not really mad at you. Can’t we just have a normal time together?”

“That’s what I really want, Lorna.”

“Okay, then why don’t you just shut up and relax,” said Lorna.

“Oh. Well,” said Hosea. And quickly put his glass back on the coffee table.

“Oh God, Lorna, I’ve missed you,” said Hosea.

“Yeah?” said Lorna.

“You know, I’ve missed you, too, Hose,” sighed Lorna about thirty minutes later.

Hosea hated lying around and talking after having sex. He preferred to go outside, flushed and happy, and feel the earth and the sky, and himself sandwiched between them, and know that as things go in the universe, he had just been blessed. But he knew from experience this was not Lorna’s first choice. One time he had dragged her outside in the dark, naked and sweaty, and she had started to cough and complain about mosquitoes, and had not said she felt blessed when Hosea had asked her. And so this time he decided he would just get up and get that Emmylou Harris song playing, finally. He brought the tape box back to the floor with him and lay down beside Lorna so that his head was right under the coffee table. Together they listened to the music and looked at the box, at the picture of Emmylou folded up inside it.

“God, does she have long toes, eh?” said Hosea.

“Wow. They’re kinda creepy-looking, don’t you think?” asked Lorna. Hosea didn’t think so. He imagined Emmylou’s toes contained in her painted cowboy boots, slightly splayed, planting her body onstage while she belted out “Born to Run.” “Yeah they are, aren’t they?” said Hosea.

“Hmmm,” said Lorna. “Is this song about heartbreak?” Lorna put her head on Hosea’s chest. He patted her head and stared up at the underside of the coffee table. Made in Manitoba, it had stamped on it.