You boys get out of here for a minute, I told them, thinking that maybe I could keep her calm long
enough to find out where the boys needed to go to have someone look after them. They went outside, but I
could see both of them watching us from a crack in the door. I got to get out of here, she said suddenly. She
looked exhausted from her tantrum, or else from the whole ordeal. I felt badly for her. Was she a drug addict,
or what? Who knows with people these days? I tried to smile at her. She stared blankly into my eyes. OK.
OK. I called the boys back into the trailer and told them that I would be back after I gave her a ride to wherever it was she wanted to go. We want to go, too, said Abel. Shut up, said Fox. Abel started to cry and Fox
folded an arm around his shoulder. Don’t cry. He’ll come back. And he looked at me with hopeful eyes. You’ll
come back, he said hopefully. Yes. Right back. I’ll take your grandma and come right back. Then we’ll figure
out… She’s not our grandma, the boys interrupted. OK, OK, she’s not. I smiled at them. They looked like fine
young boys. But they also looked scared and mistreated. I couldn’t blame them for being upset. Christ. Look,
I said, getting down on one knee and pulling them close. We huddled there by the door. I’ll take you wherever you want to go, too. Within reason, I added, when I saw the mischievous look shimmer across Fox’s face.
They looked at each other and then back at me. You want to go home, to your parents’ house?
The minute I said it, I thought, why…why didn’t I just keep my mouth shut? They’re gone, Abel said. Shut
up, said Fox. You shut up. They’re gone and they aren’t coming back, Abel said, sadly, but in defiance of his
brother. Oh, Christ, talk about feeling bad. Two boys struggling against bad odds, a whole world set up to
make them disappear, to lie down and go quietly. But they had spirit, I’ll say. We hugged each other there for
a minute. Listen, I said, you want to go to the day care, like your…like the…uh…lady said? They looked at
me without answering. OK. I get the picture. Not the day care. Do you have any aunties I can take you to?
Uncles? You know…family? The look. Of stark emptiness and loneliness born of separation. Lives in roiling
transition. Young, old, it doesn’t matter. That look is unmistakable, unforgettable. I seen it plenty of times in
my own mirror.
The old lady rushed past us with her suitcase in one hand and the jar of water in the other. She scarcely gave us a glance, and I wondered what would she have done to the boys if I hadn’t been there. I had no idea
what was wrong with her, and my guessing didn’t help. Her problems were ingrained in her. She wore them
in her whole body, like muscle memory. I was feeling terrible when the boys said they wanted to go back inside the trailer and get a fire going in the little heater. I was still watching the woman. She was looking up at
the sky, the suitcase at her feet. She was opening and closing her hands. Snow was falling in soft flakes that
formed a mantel of white on her shoulders. She stood there by the tailgate of my truck