“You think I should have just stayed with her all these years?” he asked.
“It’s good enough for some of us,” I said.
“She never stopped talking,” Shane said. “Only other person I know who talks that much is Rudy.”
“At least she shows up,” I said. And of course I was thinking, Sometimes too much. Sometimes the woman shows up and shows up and shows up and you end up thinking, Please don’t show up this time. Just maybe sit this one out. Still, I found myself defending her to Shane in the way people defend their family. I’m the only one who has the right to despise this person.
“I’m not a coward, I’m pragmatic,” Shane said. “Everyone makes compromises, Karen. Even you.”
“What happens to Marie?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“It’s up to her,” he said. “She still works, if she’s willing to. I just find a better place for her.”
“What about that fucking guy?”
“Cameron? He still works, too,” he said. “They won’t work together, of course. Everyone needs a job. You think you’re being a hero, but you’re pissing against the wind, and you’re never going to change anything anyway.”
But Shane was wrong. I didn’t think I was a hero. I thought I was a nothing, a nothing person. But I’d run out of patience. My mind had cleared the moment I held that pipe wrench in my hand.
I turned down his offer of a ride. I made it back to the motel and I looked for Marie, but she was gone. The fire ring had been scattered. The low plain drew back like the apocalypse had chosen that place to touch down.
* * *
Still, I wasn’t quite finished. Before Shane had a chance to change the locks, I used my set of keys one more time. I walked back to the crime scene, took me two hours. The sun was setting as I rolled back the fence, slipped inside the trailer. I didn’t turn on any lights, just felt for the computer switch. I held my breath, but my password worked, the pipeline map flickered onto the screen, and I followed the red line with my finger. Construction had reached Muskingum County, only two counties north of our place. It stopped just outside of Zanesville. There, the red ended in a blinking purple icon, and when I checked the key at the bottom of the map, to see what that icon meant, I learned that a compressor station was being built there, ten acres with a turbine to pump fracked gas south.
I logged out, locked the door behind me. I threw the keys as far as I could into the scrub grass, past the snapping turtle shell bleached in the sun.
I figured I’d walked this far, I could make it another mile to the Walmart. It wasn’t busy that time of night, not even anyone at the door to greet me. I grabbed a basket. It took me a while to find the swimming pool cleaner, but when an employee asked if I needed help, I said, Just browsing. I hit the auto department next, found brake fluid no problem. In hardware, I added a crescent wrench. A flashlight in the camping section. My last stop was kitchen supplies. Turkey baster. I felt the cash in my pocket, carefully stored up all this time. Still not enough for a septic system. On the way to the register, I guess I got lost. I circled back past the protein bars, knelt behind the sunglasses display, and dumped the entire basket into my knapsack. Then I held my breath and walked out.
I thought for sure someone would come after me, but no one did. I kept along the road until I felt the straps of my pack digging into my shoulders. It was finally time to go home.
Now that I was headed there, I could find no reason to call. Anything I had to say to Lily, any news there was for me to hear about Perley, it could wait one more day. I couldn’t believe I’d stayed away so long. This time, I wouldn’t take the Greyhound. This time, like in my youth when I thought that knowing old songs and glorifying hoboes would free me of my high school self-hatred for wearing everything used, for wanting to marry a woman, I hit the on-ramp, and I stuck out my thumb.
First ride I got was from a tanker truck driver. He said he was going all the way