brought me onto their land to take out that ash tree. That’s feminists for you. They still want men to do the heavy lifting.”
“How did you meet them?” I asked.
“Like I said, me and your man cleared an ash for them,” Rudy said. “He didn’t tell you?” He looked at me strangely.
“No,” I said. “He never told me. So, what? So men are allowed on their land after all?”
“It still proves my point,” Rudy said. “They don’t need men until they need men. And now one of them is pregnant. It doesn’t make a bit of sense. Goddamn, have you seen her? She must be as big as a house by now. But I’ve still got my standards,” he said. “I’ll give her a ride, but I won’t stop the car all the way to let her out. I’ll just open the door and let it roll. I have to show them I have some self-respect. They always think they can get the best of me.” He shook his head. “Goddammit,” he said. “She’s as beautiful as god himself.”
* * *
That afternoon at the hardware and salvage store, I followed Rudy toward the back, where a pregnant woman in overalls lay with her head underneath a jacked-up cabinet. Her belly domed above her. Lying there, she could have been a snake eating an elephant. Rudy stood blushing behind his beard, chewing on the end of his matted ponytail. She kept working. No one said anything.
“Are you Lily?” I finally asked.
“We do everything here,” her voice came from under the cabinet. “Scratch-and-dent. We fix it up, sell stuff out back. Hardware in front. You need something?” She pulled herself out from under the cabinet, but stayed on her back, holding a screwdriver in one hand, her long black hair spilling out from under a baseball cap.
“Rudy,” she said, “would you mind putting this stuff away for me?” She pointed her chin at the tools strewn on the floor.
Rudy scooped them all up and disappeared down an aisle. Lily closed her eyes and put her hands on her belly. She seemed to be sleeping. I wasn’t sure what to do. Then she opened her eyes and looked at me a long moment. Carefully, she mentioned my boyfriend.
“He left,” I said.
“I know,” she said. “How are you getting along?”
“Just fine,” I said, to see how it sounded.
She continued to lie there, her sharp white chin pointing up at me. “It can be hard on your own. Especially when winter comes,” she said.
“I won’t be here that long,” I said.
“Are you selling your place?” she asked. I hadn’t thought about that part of it yet, so I just shrugged. She turned over onto her side, pushed herself to hands and knees, laboriously rose to her feet. Rudy rushed over and tried to take her elbow, but she shook him off. She clocked out.
We squeezed into the truck, me with my knees up over the gearshift, Lily’s belly pressed against the glove compartment.
“How’s working for Rudy?” she asked, like she already knew.
“Fine,” I said, glancing at him, but he kept his eyes on the road, except when we hit a bump. Then he would look around me to see how Lily had taken it. She never noticed.
“When are you due?” I asked her.
“January,” she said. “Karen’s home right now figuring out how to hook up a pump so we can have hot water in the birthing tub. It’s a real pain in the ass. Our cabin’s only sixteen by sixteen. Karen built it. We got hot water just for the birth. We moved a propane water heater into a little shed out back.”
“You’re not going to the hospital?” I asked.
“Where they’ll treat Karen like she’s just some stranger, and all that hassle?” Lily said. “No. We’ll just do it ourselves.” She smiled and closed her eyes, leaned her head against the window.
“Fuck the hospital,” Rudy said, and stuck his ponytail in his mouth again.
Lily opened her eyes and raised her head. “Has Rudy ever told you the story about how his balls almost rotted off?” she asked me.
“My boyfriend told me that one,” I said. “He said Rudy got to the hospital just in time.”
“Is that what he said?” Rudy said around his hair. “I guess he didn’t tell you what happened next.”
“I wondered about that,” I said.
“Lily’s already heard it,” Rudy said.
“I don’t mind,” Lily said. “I like the way you tell it.”
Rudy grinned straight ahead, chewing. Then he spit his ponytail out and