said, “They asked me, Why didn’t you come in sooner? Why did you get this infection? I said I got a wound and I tried to stitch it myself, but it went bad. Where do you live? they asked. I told them I slept on a rock, or in the shack when it was too cold, but mostly on the rock if it was clear. Where? they asked. On my family land, I said. Address please, they said. There’s no fucking address, I said. It’s the coal company. It’s just everywhere. It’s everything. Acres and acres. Then the pain shot up through me again, and I groaned, I howled, Oh, I want to die, I hope I die, I’ll do away with myself, give me an implement, I’ll do it! I woke up in the psych ward. The note they wrote said I’d threatened to harm myself, and was acting unreasonable, attempting to perform surgery on myself and living outside the bounds of civilization. Put me down for vagrancy, trespassing on private property, et cetera. They brought pills. They said if I took them I would calm down. They came around every afternoon at the same time with those same pills for everyone. They wouldn’t quite tell me what was in them. I won’t take your fucking pills, I said. I’ve been through all that. I don’t take pills anymore. And they marked me down as paranoid and noncooperative.”
Lily nodded. “So then he called us in the middle of the night, and Karen was pissed. She said, Rudy, if you think you might be crazy there’s no need to tell the people who can put you away for it. But we went down there and brought him some Cheetos and carrot juice. I’d never seen his beard without sawdust in it.”
“My boyfriend left out the part about the psych ward,” I said.
“There was always something off about that guy,” Rudy said. “He had an angle. You could never quite tell where you stood. Someone should have told him you can’t please everyone.”
Lily took off her hat, and twisted her black hair once around her wrist, then tucked it up off her neck, resettled the hat over her eyes. I could see her take me in sideways. “Me and Karen have been thinking about you up there,” she said. “Twenty acres and just you by yourself? You got any animals?”
“Ducks,” I said. “We got them for laying, but they haven’t laid yet.”
“Are you sure they’re ducks? Have you sexed them yet?” she asked.
“Not yet,” I admitted.
“Have you ever done that before?” I hadn’t, but I didn’t say so. She laughed. “Could be that you’ve got drakes,” she said.
“So I’ll kill them for meat,” I said.
“Duck killing’s hard with just one person,” she said. “Takes a long time to pluck them, all those pinfeathers. Rudy, you could help her.”
“I could,” Rudy said. “But I’m trying to keep things professional.” I have to admit, it stung.
“It’s all right, I can manage on my own,” I said. Lily didn’t say more, just closed her eyes and reapplied her cheek to the window.
Rudy pulled onto Scupper Ridge and idled the truck across from the Land Trust driveway. He got out and walked around to open the door for Lily. She reached for his arm and pulled herself up, then walked down the long driveway toward her mysterious separatist land. Even to me it was mysterious. Even to me, a woman. I knew I could never be allowed there, because I still thought about my boyfriend. Why couldn’t I hold on to him? If I didn’t want to be alone in the woods, why was I alone in the woods?
Rudy chewed on his ponytail in silence until he turned back onto the main road. Then he thumped his fist on the wheel. “Shit, I want to have a baby so bad,” he said. “Sometimes I hear a baby crying and saliva rushes into my mouth.”
“Oh, it does not,” I said.
“You mean that doesn’t happen to you?” he asked.
“No,” I said.
“Well, it will,” he said. “It’s been worse ever since the dykes started doing it. She’s like the fucking earth or something.”
“Don’t make me throw up,” I said.
“Maybe it’s my age,” he said. “I’m thirty-five. About the same as you, right?”
“Thirty-two,” I said.
“You probably know how it feels, now that your man left. Your hormones are probably talking to you real loud right about now.”