about. She put a pot on to boil, then went to collect duck eggs, so the bottom boiled out of the pot while she’d already got onto another task, pulling bent nails from used lumber, or salting a hide. She culled cabbage leaves for sauerkraut, but uprooted the plants, killing them. She saved a deer stomach to make blood sausage, but then turned her attention to drying red clover, so the stomach went to black slime. She ricocheted back and forth between Appalachian apprentice and holier-than-thou outsider, casually slipping in shit she must have picked up from some college class, spouting opinion as fact. Of course she didn’t notice that Karen was the better builder. She wouldn’t even notice if the house fell down. Still, Karen and I wanted what most people want, to harvest and eat our own asparagus. If you eat the raw shoots in the springtime, your blood thickens like a warrior, is what my grandma told me.
* * *
By the end of summer, the three of us were so tired at the end of the day’s work that we no longer cooked meals together. We ate separate sandwiches and went to sleep. We’d stopped making toasts. We’d run out of wine and gin. We didn’t buy more. We tried not to buy anything. We still hadn’t talked about money. In town, I dodged Deirdre and Janice so I wouldn’t have to tell them, Soon, soon, about that last month of rent. My boss at the hardware store said my job was still mine when I wanted it, and I held that in the back of my mind. After work hours, Helen disappeared up into the woods to gather food, and she came back with baskets full of dusty and dark plants, buckets of fur and feathers, flesh and intestine. The first few times, she invited Karen to come with her, but Karen declined. One evening at twilight, as Karen and I silently ate our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, Helen strode into camp with two squirrels slung over her shoulder.
“Figured you might be hungry,” she said, letting her squirrels drop onto the pallet she used for processing. “I haven’t seen either one of you buy groceries in a while.” Karen squeezed her sandwich crust.
“We need to save money if we’re going to be able to finish the house by winter,” I said. Since we’d arrived, it was the first time that word—money—had been spoken aloud.
“Don’t worry, I’m happy to feed you,” Helen said, and that was what finally did it. That’s what brought Karen back to herself.
“I’d be surprised if this house even lasts through the winter,” Karen said, pitching the crust over her shoulder.
“What is that supposed to mean?” asked Helen.
“It’s shameful,” Karen said. “It’s an embarrassment.”
“What is?” asked Helen.
“You heard me,” Karen said. “The house. It’s a ringing example of poor craftsmanship.”
“And whose fault is that?” asked Helen, as ready as if she’d rehearsed.
“Yours,” Karen said.
“Karen,” I said.
“You know it, too, Lily,” Karen said. “You’ve known it all along. We should have said something earlier. But Helen never stopped talking.” Perley leaned off my nipple to watch her. He was nearly seven months old, but he hadn’t yet seen this Karen. The Karen he knew kept her head down and held her tongue, let Helen have the last word. But this woman, the one scowling up at Helen, was the Karen I knew well, who spoke plainly, who was happy only when she was angry and fighting.
Helen began talking fast. “It’s your fault, Karen, because you should have been the lead carpenter. You should have been the lead carpenter, but you’re trying to make me feel good about myself or you’re afraid of me or something.”
“I’m not afraid of you,” Karen said.
“But you wouldn’t speak up,” Helen kept on. “You wouldn’t speak up, and how do you think it felt for me to make mistakes, so many mistakes, with you watching me make them? How do you think that made me feel?”
“This isn’t about your feelings, Helen,” said Karen. “This is about two things only.”
“What two things?” asked Helen.
“Running out of money and not having any shelter for the winter,” said Karen.
“We have the camper,” I said. “And you could go back to work at the clinic.”
“Please shut up,” Karen said.
“Just stay out of this, Lily,” Helen said.
Karen turned back to Helen. “And I don’t care if you feel good about yourself. I just want to know who’s in charge. Is it me because