with hair and grit like always. Karen was tall, Lily was short, Karen pale, Lily rosy, Karen long, Lily round. Karen had just turned forty-one, Lily was thirty-three. From where I sat, they looked like nothing so much as conjoined twins.
“Were you including me in that thing?” I asked Karen. “That thing about sticking around to fight together?”
“There’s no room for fighting with you,” Karen said. “You don’t think you know everything. You know you know everything. Which is probably one reason you’re alone.”
“Karen,” said Lily.
“It’s fine, Lily,” I said, keeping my voice light to hide where she’d hurt. “It’s true what Karen says, I do know a lot of things. I know that partnership doesn’t suit me. So what?”
“But you’re not alone, Helen,” Lily said, her eyes filling with tears. “You’re with us.”
“I’m with you and I’m alone,” I said.
I wanted to help. But there’s no helping some people. Why tell Lily and Karen how soundly I slept, while the two of them hissed back and forth on the other side of the partition? I certainly didn’t envy them. I certainly didn’t miss my boyfriend. Not anymore. You spend your life figuring how you’ll reckon with death, with losing everyone that matters to you, including yourself. You partner up to get some comfort, but there’s no comfort. Instead, you have someone else’s naked fear to contend with as well. Some people are forgiving of that fear in their partner, and some people are forgiving of that fear in themselves. But no one is both. Karen and Lily didn’t want to hear what I knew: when you’re alone, you’re not creating that terrible equation, one plus one.
* * *
Now that Rudy was camping on the pipeline, I had a VIP pass to his slimy teeth, crusty socks, unruly body hair, sweat-stained long underwear, crushed beer cans. I left Karen and Lily squabbling on the sofa and found Rudy chain-smoking next to his sleeping bag, bootlaces loosened. The Greek drama pendant lay on the grass next to him, smiling and frowning up at the sky. “Work’s canceled,” he said. “I’d rather be in the nursery today. Are you going to help?”
“Until Perley gets home from school,” I said. “Then he’s helping me collect acorns. We’ve still got another barrel to fill before winter.”
“You’re eating acorns again? Hard times,” said Rudy.
“They actually taste good, you know. You should try them,” I said.
“I know how they taste, you fucking carpetbagger,” said Rudy. “My grandpa used to eat them. Good isn’t how I would describe it. Just because the old-timers did it doesn’t mean it’s made of gold. Old-timers did lots of stupid shit, just like everybody else.”
We gathered buckets, shoveled soil into them, buried exposed root networks, swamped each tree from the rain catchment Rudy had rigged off the toolshed roof.
“You mind if I ask what the hell was up with the .22 this morning?” Rudy said as he Sharpied labels and I stuck them on buckets.
“I didn’t know what I’d find out here,” I said.
“You know how to use it or what?” he asked.
“Yeah, I know how to use it,” I said.
“Didn’t, though,” he said.
“What did you want me to do?” I asked. “Shoot the helicopter out of the sky?”
“Warning shot couldn’t hurt,” he said.
“What about you?” I asked. “If you’re so into guns, why don’t you have one?”
“Have one but don’t feel the need to go flashing it around,” he said. He peeled up the piece of waxed cardboard, which was his mattress, and displayed a twelve-gauge shotgun. “Didn’t need it anyway,” he said. “I had my bling for protection.”
“Your bling?” I asked.
He picked up the Greek drama pendant. “Like my forefathers,” he said. “Celtic warriors liked to get naked and paint themselves blue. Scared the shit out of their adversaries.”
“But no one in that helicopter could even see your bling,” I said.
“Did you see how low they were flying?” he asked. He fingered the shotgun thoughtfully. “When it comes to guns,” he said, “you can always use practice.”
So we set up Rudy’s empty Natural Ice cans, and we spent the rest of the day on target practice. I had other things I needed to be doing. I had acorns to rake, rabbits to snare, roots to dig, cattails waiting in the bog, but Rudy insisted.
“Your neighbors will hear it. That’s always useful,” he said. He sprayed one final round of shot, sending the beer cans flying into the woods. Far below us on the road, Perley’s school bus pulled up