It was the morning after, or so I thought. Waking, well not so much waking as coming to, I look at the woman on the other side of the bed. Whose bed, whose room, whose house, who is she? The fog of the morning/noon was lifting slowly in that strange room and looking at her laying there beside me all I could think was, “Shit, I have been here far too many times, and I still don’t know where here is.” I rise up slowly and look around; there is a trail of clothes leading to the bedroom door, some are mine, I think. There are red curtains on the windows and there is a smell of cheap perfume, smoke, beer and last night’s sex still in the air. But whose air was it? Not mine for sure. I lit a cigarette and reached over for a not so dead soldier, piss warm, but still the breakfast of champions.

I know I had left the house on Friday night with the idea that I would stop in the bar and see a few friends and just have a beer or two. That was yesterday; yeah, that’s right, it was just yesterday. Ok, I was going to be OK... all I needed to do was to grab my clothes, get in my car and run into work late. Hell, they were used to seeing me come in late.

I ease out of bed and find everything except one sock, big deal, who’s going to notice a sock anyway? It was a shit job and they were lucky to have me, even to have me late.

Somewhere, things are different, and in that place my car is in the last place I left it. Somewhere people are not just content with their lot, they are trying to make a life, a life without misery... and somewhere, right now in just about any town, in a smoke- filled back room someone is putting down his cup of coffee and saying...

And at exactly that same time as this is going throughout his head, a head that he wishes was someone else’s, at least until it stops spinning, across town a more mundane scene is starting to play out...

It is five in the morning, as she walks into the kitchen, that same kitchen where all the meals have been fixed over the last thirty-two years. She is still in her night clothes with a faded blue bathrobe and warm, pink fuzzy slippers—well, they were fuzzy when they were new, but now, at least they were warm. This was to be a special day, a day that she had waited for, waited for five years. Finally, her daughter was out of college and was to about to start working today. She couldn’t shake the feeling that something in her life had gone wrong as she waited for the coffee to perk. This was her last vice. She was hooked on caffeine; she had become a coffee junky.

The kitchen looks the same, well almost the same as it did five long years ago. It is still spotless, but the linoleum is showing a wear pattern, a path, from the constant moving from side to side, waiting for this or that to cook or just to reheat. The counter tops are a faded yellowish white matching the cabinets and even though all the drawers have knobs, they no longer match. Everything in that kitchen had been wiped clean and polished so many times that most of the chrome has long ago left the nameplates on the refrigerator, the washing machine and even the stove.

Mother stands there, looking out into the darkness that is the backyard, sips her coffee and thinks about what might have happened if her life had taken a different turn, so many years ago, so many cups of early morning coffee and so many little things that she saw at the at the mall—things she really wanted but didn’t buy. She had to cut corners somewhere, and there just wasn’t enough money for everything. She was always thinking that as soon as things were different, when she didn’t have quite so many bills, well that would be her time. Somewhere in the back of her head is a memory of a boy she dated, danced with and fell in love with. She closes her eyes and she can see his face and even... “Mom...” calls the daughter. “Mom, you’re such a Betty, come back, are you daydreaming about Frank Sinatra again?”

I made my way out of the house onto the street. It was a street that has seen better days. The houses were all the same, it was at one time a good neighborhood with people that cared not only for the house but yard as well. But that was then, and that must have been thirty years ago. I looked first left and then right and then back left, but my car was not there. I checked my watch and knew I am going to be really late. I would come back and look for a car after work, I walk to the bus.

Sitting on that city bus I look out the window to a world that has changed, no big changes, just subtle small, almost unnoticeable changes. Denny’s is on the wrong side of the street, the Big Mac has a bigger sign, and there is a Shell station where the Moble station should be. The only constant is that there is a Starbucks on every other corner. There is unease to what I am seeing; it’s real and surreal at the same time. I need to figure this out; I need a drink, I need a drink....bad. Finally I see an oasis in all this confusion. I reach up, pull the cord and the bus stops, well not where I wanted it too, but it does stop about two blocks from the bar I saw. So I’m going to be really late for work again, this is not new. I finally make it the two blocks to the bar, walk in and sit down. As the bartender approaches, I say, “Draft and a shot.” I light a cigarette as he pulls the draft and puts it in front of me, half a glass disappears instantly and he comes over with the shot and I just point to the half empty glass and he dumps it in. it is cold and smooth and goes down in one motion. He stands there and I say “Again.”

I’m a big one for small talk and “Again” is about as small as it gets, but it does get the job done. Our conversation goes like this:

“I’ve never seen you here before.”

I say, “Again.”

He busies himself at the other end of the bar, watching some crap on the TV, the 6’oclock news. He walks back and I am draining my glass. “You work in the neighborhood?”

“Again.”

He returns with my shot in one hand and a draft in the other, hands me the draft, and it does the half disappearing act again. He pours the shot in the glass and returns to his place at the other end of the bar.

Now I’m starting to think this guy is none too bright; I came here to drink, not eat or talk. Well, he walks away again and I am left alone with my drink and my thoughts. I know from years of experience that the thoughts and the demons they bring will disappear if I just have another drink or two, or a few, and that’s what I want, a drink and the peace that comes with it ,but, it’s not twenty minutes and he’s back with more chatter.

“Want me to call next-door and have them bring you some breakfast?”

“Again.” Now I am in a different place, not the good place I want to be in, but at least I have moved from wanting to “Who cares.” Shit, they don’t care about me; why the fuck should I care about them, any of them?

There was a time when I was happy. Yeah, but that was a long time ago. I was young, and I had a good job, and I had a woman that treated me like a king. We were both in our late teen years. God, I want those days back. What I would give for another ride on the merry-go-round. Things would be different this time. Really they would. I know just what I would do. I’d start by “How about a burger or something?”

“Again.”

I am finally feeling normal; I am no longer ready to jump out of my skin. I am calm, and I am in charge. I have the world by the balls, and I am squeezing.

“Again.”

But it’s still early and I have time for another drink...

And at a nondescript office building close to the center of town Billy had started what may become his final day of the work, perhaps his final day on this earth. He is a man who is good at his job, very good at his job, but perhaps this has become his undoing. Today, they would know that his job isn’t the only thing he is good at, all of them.

Billy sits there smiling and thinking to himself...It’s the same grind everyday, not what he expected when he started eight years ago. Billy went into government work as a bright-eyed kid, fresh out of college, his first job where he didn’t have to wear a paper hat and ask “Would you like fries with that?” And at first, it was exciting, working in a large office building, seeing people he had only seen on the news, right there in the same building. The promise of advancement, the talk of going to a foreign office, or just being in D.C. was enough for a farm boy like him; he was drunk, dizzy in love with the thought of being in the know, gliding past security each morning but... then the realization came. He was good at his job, his boss was good at his, and he was going to be doing most of the work, and he would be getting none of the credit... It wasn’t fair, not fair at all.

It was early as Billy sat at his desk, an empty desk for the first time in eight years. It would be at least forty-five minutes before anyone else showed up, and they would come in, in the same herdlike mass that they come in every morning, briefcase in one hand, Starbucks in the other, never looking his way, not a “Good morning,” not a “How’s it going?” nothing, like he was invisible, like he wasn’t there. He had become a non-person. But there he was, early that morning, sitting at his empty desk fitting together the last few pieces of the gun that he had week by week brought in, piece by piece. A gun that he had stored inside of a hollowed out copy of one of the ledgers that his boss had moved from his office to Billy’s desk, yet another reminder of the work that he was not getting any credit for doing. Billy had made a layout of the office on his computer and had even typed up a list of who had to go and who might make it home today.

So now he was locked and loaded and waiting. This is it; this is what he has been waiting for, planning for, thinking about for the last six months. The door opens, the office fills and there is a girl standing in front of him holding out a cup of coffee... Who is she? Does she know what today is? WHO IS SHE?

But I’m in no hurry. No hurry at all.

The clock on the wall is easing close to noon and I sit there enjoying the coolness of the bar I am thinking, “What’s another missed day? We don’t do much on Saturday anyway.” But now, either the bartender is a mind reader or I am thinking out loud because he answers “Mac, it’s Monday; you must have had a real good weekend.” Monday? If today’s Monday... My head starts to spin again. I lost my car and two days, and I know it’s a shit job, but it pays the rent. I got to call in with some excuse. My sister died... No, I used that last month... My brother is in hospital. No, they heard that before too. I look at my empty glass and back over to the bartender, but he’s ahead of me and is pulling another.

It’s cool and dark and quiet in here, and it’s just been to two of us since I walked in, but now three kids come in, no, more than twenty-one if they are that... leather kids, trouble kids. Biker wanna-bes. One guy swaggers in and with the sun behind him I have to squint to figure out what the next is. Then I see it’s another guy with a skinny girl wrapped around him ... They kind of fall in through the backdoor, off the parking lot, and she doesn’t let go of him till they get to the jukebox. She unhooks and puts her hand out for money... great... country, rock & roll, it’s all noise to me. I look over and see that the bartender is getting beers for them and she is still at the noise box. She is young and thin, maybe two or three years younger than she needs to be to get in here.

And there she is, long blond hair, in the glow of the light from to jukebox. Halter top and jeans—jeans so tight that they look like they are painted on. I think back, back too many years. God I was young then. I met a girl, she looked a lot like this girl, dated, had a kid, married, had another, separated, went back together, had another kid, separated, divorced. We were good together, when things were good; but when things went bad, they went real bad real fast. Got to call her, haven’t seen her for almost five months now. Hey, I could get her to call in sick for me. Yeah, that’s what I’ll do. No, she won’t help, not with me being over two years behind in child support. Still, it might be worth a shot; no, I won’t call her. I look over, order a drink and ask for the telephone.

Downtown June’s cell phone is ringing. She reaches under her desk and then fumbles through her purse, retrieving her pink Hello Kitty phone. On the other end the voice says “Junie? Hi, it’s Daddy...need a favor...oh, how are you doing?” June is thinking as fast as she can, this is a new job, and I’m getting personal calls already, and I really don’t have any money, I sure hope he doesn’t ask for money... again.

I tell her I need her to call my work and tell them that I’m really sick. “Just do this for me. Come on, Junie, just this one more time. No, I haven’t talked to your mother. No, no, not for over three months or so. No, I don’t think it’s within in the latest time in six months. What do you mean Melody is home? Isn’t she still in college?” So I tell Junie I’ll stop by and see her after work one day, maybe the beginning of next week, or a few days later, real soon anyway. “Just make sure you tell them that I have been sick, in bed, with the flu, but I’m on the mend and should be in the morning.” I tell her that we will go out for dinner at that Thai place she likes so much..there is an uneasy silence and then she says, “Daddy, its Melody that loves Thai food... I can’t stand it, but I’ll call in for you, don’t worry.” Then she tells me that she has to get off the phone; she only has thirty minutes for lunch.

O.K., that’s done. Junie has always been my favorite. We had two girls, but early on we did have a boy. He was our first, but we were really young and the time we were both drinking and using a lot of drugs. I was in jail when the state took him away. Even though we got back together, we were not able to get him back from the state; even going to AA didn’t seem to cut it with them. I can still remember that it used to take about five hours in a bar to get the taste of the meetings out of my mouth, and it did drive a wedge between his mother and me. She went to meetings and stopped drinking; I always needed a few drinks to make it to a meeting. And she stopped being fun after she stopped drinking. I wonder what ever happened to my son? Damn court system. Took my kid, turned my wife against me, put me in jail, what else do they want out of my life...

“Again.”

She just stands there holding that coffee cup out and smiling. “Good morning. I’m the new girl; I have the desk next to yours. Bob, you know Bob, he used to have that desk, and then he got moved to accounting, I guess I’m just lucky, that’s it, yeah I’m just lucky, lucky to have the job, lucky to be working here, anyway, I noticed that by the time everybody else got here, you must have finished your coffee, or maybe, you were just working so hard that you forgot to buy coffee or if you didn’t forget that your coffee had gotten cold and now when everybody else was sitting and enjoying their morning coffee you were hard at work.” Billy just sits there looking at her, not knowing what to say, and not saying anything. “Oh, I better get to my desk and get started on my work anyway, June, my name is June, and hope I didn’t bother you too much just stopping and gabbing and gabbing but I have this problem, it seems once I get started my mouth just goes on and on-hope you like it black, I didn’t know.”

And that was that, she was gone, Billy looked down at his desk. It wasn’t a dream, someone had actually noticed me and more than that had even taken the time to get him coffee, but more than that, after being ignored for so long someone had taken the time to stop and talk to him. Granted, it was a more or less a rambling-stumbling good morning, “How are you? I’m new,” but...June, her scent hangs in the air. What the hell is going on? Eight years and now this! Under the desk Billy clicks the safety into the on position and slides the gun into the hollowed out ledger book, an old ledger book that was supposed to be tossed out last year. This has been the guns home for the last six months. Billy walks over to his private office to think. His head is still spinning as the men’s room door closes behind him.

The girl is up, wide awake, dressed and ready for her new job. This is all the two of them have thought of for the last four long years. Melody is wearing a smart new business suit. Hair done up just right and... “Honey, you should have waited until after breakfast to get dressed. What if you spill something? You know how you are when you’re in a hurry.”

But she says “Mom, I’m not a little girl anymore. I know how to eat without making a mess.”

But in the mother’s eye, she is still a little girl, and she thinks back in the flash of a second to a picture that she has carried in her heart of the girl eating her first chocolate cookie. More wearing a chocolate cookie than eating it and remembering having to give her a bath before they could leave the house that day. Now she sits there, with a white, whiter than white, silk shirt on, waiting for eggs and bacon. She is sipping on some Starbucks coffee- like-thing that she bought last night. It was better than the house blend, (especially she thought, this house blend).

The two had been fighting this silent war for the four years of college that the girl was away for as she worked for her bachelor’s degree. Then it continued for the extra year that the girl spent getting her masters. The mother felt as if they were growing apart and the girl felt like she was just growing up and yes, maybe there was more distance between them now.

There is little conversation between them, just that same unsaid stillness in the room as the second pot starts to perk and break the silence. “Mom, you’re drinking way too much coffee. You know it’s not good for you.”

The mother looks over and says nothing. Twenty five years ago, she gave up drinking, a few months later she kicked a fifteen year drug habit; she no longer smokes cigarettes, not one in over twenty years. Betty picks up her cup and looks at it, looks over at her daughter, and then back at the cup. And as the sun is coming up over the backyard, and the second pot is perking she drains the cup dry.

Melody looks in her direction with a mixture of amazement and disgust, gets the keys from her purse and says she is going to go out and start the car. Not a minute goes by and she is back, and now she is beside herself, someone has flattened all four of her tires.... She is going to be late for work, real late, and it is just her first day.

So I’m sitting in the bar, no worries about work now. I’m going to have to do something nice for Junie; I’ll stop by and see her next week. Yeah, I’ll take her to that Thai place she always liked so much. That’s what I’ll do...

I am just slightly annoyed at the noise coming from the jukebox. The girl is asking first one boy and then the next to dance with her, but they are busy talking about something. What is it? Dope? Motorcycles? Whatever. I see this and think about how I treated Junie and Melody’s mother. Did I ignore her back then, the way these boys are ignoring her? No, it must have been something else, perhaps it was her having to fight to keep our boy when I was in jail and could not help at all... I told her to get a lawyer and have the case pushed around until I got out... would she listen to me? No. Did she ever? No, Damn her. I can’t even enjoy a day off without thinking about the way she screwed things up. She screwed it all up and now somehow it is my fault. I look his way; he nods and pulls another.

Soon she tires of asking and starts to move on her own, to the music. She just kind of wanders away from the bar and is dancing in the light of the jukebox. She has a slow easy way of moving, of turning, of spinning that makes her hair look longer and blonder and all in all, more woman than girl. I sit there openly watching the show, the show she is putting on for the skinny pocked-face kid that she had come in with, the one who doesn’t even notice her, the one who reminds me of myself and how I had been back then. You know at first she didn’t even notice me watching her...

Billy looks up from his work and she is still there. No, she has come back and is saying something, something about missing half of her lunch break, and being on the phone with someone, and now she doesn’t have time to finish the lunch she has made that morning and would he like half a tuna fish sandwich... if he didn’t want it, it was OK, but would he like to go to the break room and share her lunch? She says she hates to be forward but at the same time she hates to waste food... All Billy can do is nod, and get up from his desk. First she gives him coffee and that good morning thing... that long rambling good morning. Now, “Do you want half of my lunch? If it was a bag of sugar and Billy was a diabetic, he would have happily gone into insulin shock for her.

Melody is still beside herself. It is her first day of work, and it’s a real job, not that temp work crap that June has to settle for. Who did this to her?

“Mom. Do you think it was June because she is upset that I have a real job and she is still doing office temp work?” I wouldn’t put it past that little bitch.

Melody is really steamed now, and Betty tries to calm her saying, that June would have no reason to do this; besides, she just started working full-time for the government.

“Well who then, Daddy?”

The mother says she hasn’t heard from or seen the father in over a year and a half and that he probably doesn’t even know Melody is home or done with college.

“Oh yes he does; I got a card and $100.00 from him right before I graduated.”

The mother turns to the window, picks up her coffee and says nothing, downs the rest of the cup and says “To my little girl on her big day. Sorry I couldn’t be there... daddy.” The mother shakes her head and thinks to herself, five years of college and she still doesn’t have a clue. And I’m the Betty. Never Betty Becall, never the smart one, the one with class, always THE Betty... Betty Page. Well I used to have the body for it, but what the hell were my parents thinking of when they named me Betty...

Sitting at a table in the break room, Billy looks around like a kid visiting Disneyland for the first time. In the eight years he has worked here, he has never been into the employees’ break room. On the days that he actually had time to eat lunch, he always did it at his desk so that he could keep working. After all, that gave him an extra five hours to get his work, and his boss’s work done, well that and the extra hour he had put in everyday by coming to work an hour before everybody else.

The break room is a large empty space except for twelve tables and a bank of vending machines and a lot of folding chairs. There are machines for coffee, hot chocolate, and tea. There are candy machines and chips of all kinds, and over in one corner, there is a microwave. June walks to the table closest to the microwave and takes a container out of her bag. She puts this in the microwave and sets the timer. She tells Billy to just sit for a minute and they’ll have some soup with the tuna fish sandwich. Billy has not opened his mouth, well except for the way his jaw dropped when he saw the inside of the break room. Finally, he manages “Thank you.” They sit and eat and between bites June tells him everything.

To Billy, it is like reading a book; no, it was like going to a movie; no, it was more like one of those books on tape. She tells him about the last temp job she had and how she had just loved working there. It was a publishing house and she had been hired as an assistant to one of the editors, but she didn’t really spend too much time in the actual building. It was more of a “June, I need an espresso, and while you’re out pick up my suit at the cleaners.” “I guess I lost that job when I mixed up the birthday present for his wife with the Victoria’s Secret next-to-nothing for the secretary he was dating. I guess his wife wasn’t anywhere near a size five.”

She tells him about her sister Melody—how smart she is and how much she missed her the whole time she was away at college. She tells him that she has always looked up to her sister because she was the smart one studying at a university. She says she has gone to community college for a year, but she just isn’t book smart so she started looking for temp work.

She tells him about her mother and how she has been the only parent in the house as far back as she can remember. She tells him about the family tragedy—her older brother who she has never met but has looked for—well not really looked for, but when she is walking down the street, and she sees someone that is about the right age, she thinks “Is he my brother?”

And she tells him of her father and how she is the only one in the family who he stays in touch with. She tells him that her father has a drinking problem and that he has had a drug problem at one time, but now he only has a drinking problem. She tells him that her father is a printer, has been a printer since the days of hot lead. And she tells him that she helped him get into the local community college when the paper had gone from the linotype machines to computers. And she tells him how proud she was of him when he learned to use the new computer operated presses, and she keeps telling him “Eat. Eat something.”

Billy has been ready for a lot of things that he thought would happen today. He thought he had gone through all the possible outcomes of his actions; he thought that he had covered all the possible options that were open to him and the others in the office. But the one thing he had not thought of, the one possibility he had not planned for, was sitting across the table from him sharing her lunch and sharing her life with him.

The noise box is groaning out some bluesy slowness; the two guys are deep in an animated discussion about some mindless shit and now the blond has turned her attention to me and I’m thinking “Betty used to move like that; well, back before she had three kids.” Betty was a real looker, but the divorce and some asshole lawyers, not to mention her entire family made her turn against me. But this kid sure has the look and the moves, and if nothing else, it is one hell of a show. I look over at the bartender and he nods and pulls me a draft. As he puts it on the bar I feel someone sit down next to me and glance over. It’s the kid. She says, “How about one for me too?” I nod and he brings another along with my shot. I drink about half of mine and he pours it in. She downs half of hers and looks at me. I say “Ok. You want to play in the bigs , be my guest.” And you know the two she came in with could really care less. We sit and look at each other in the mirror, the way people in bars do. I keep thinking that one of them will come after her, but they really don’t seem to notice or care. I ask her which was her boyfriend and she smiles. She says “They are together, have been for over a year, can’t you tell.” I tell her it’s not the kind of thing I look for, but whatever makes somebody happy is cool with me.

Back in the kitchen things are really going down hill fast. Melody has accused almost all of her old friends, neighbors, people who she used to sing with in the church choir and just about anyone else in the free world that she could think of. Now she is trying to get her father on the phone, but it just rings and rings. “Why is he so cheap?” It’s not like everybody doesn’t need a cell phone, but no, he is stuck in the sixties. And wouldn’t you just know it, the one time she needs anything, anything at all from that little bitch June, her phone is turned off. No, it is on and the service is telling her what she already knows: June is stupid. She never got around to setting an outgoing message on the phone so there is no way to leave a message. Melody is just short of meltdown as she screams “Some people should be kept on a leash and not allowed out of the house!” By this time, Betty couldn’t agree more.

Billy and June are still in the break room. Time has slipped by, and June is still telling him more and more of her life. She tells him of her apartment and how lucky she is to have a place so close to work that she only needs to transfer busses one time to get to the office. Billy says if she would like, he has a car, and he could drive her home. Billy can’t believe that these words actually come out of his mouth; it’s the only thing beside “Thank you” that he has managed to get out or work in when she stops to take a breath. June says that she would like that very much, and in return, she will cook a proper meal for him. “Gee, it’s sure great to meet someone so nice in my first week here. And to think, both mom and Melody told me to be careful because there are a lot of nuts working for the government.”

But now there is a lot of running and yelling going on in the office.

There is a surprise audit and they went to Peter’s office to look over the books. Sally, his secretary, told them that the books they were looking for were sitting on Billy’s desk and that Peter had put them there just before he left for lunch. (A good secretary always looks out for the boss). Going through the first book, everything looked OK, but the second book had the figures that Peter wanted reported and that they wanted explained. When they open the third book—the shell of a book with the gun, computer generated map and typed up list of who was going to walk out and who was going to be carried out—that’s when all hell broke lose. S.W.A.T. was called, the FBI was there, they even brought in bomb sniffing dogs, and the entire floor was being searched for Peter.

Peter was arrested without any problem except that he was yelling the whole time that he had nothing to do with the gun, the map or the list of people who were to die that day. Peter was pretty much a dick anyway, and no one, not even his secretary, was sorry or surprised. Unknown to Billy, Peter had made a lot of enemies in the office over the years. One of the auditors ask Billy if he would mind stepping in until they could find a replacement for Peter; after all, they told him, “You probably know more about the day to day operations.” They were sure that Billy was intimately familiar with the books. By the way, they asked, could he reconcile the two sets and get a true accounting done for them. And, of course, they realized that he would need extra staff and that could be arranged too.

All of this was said in the break room while Billy and June were still at the table, the same table that they had been sitting at for almost three hours. But now, for the first time since they met, June was quiet; it really seemed strange to see her and not hear her. The FBI and S.W.A.T. were making a final sweep of the entire building, and everyone was going home early for the first time in years.

The noise box is still going, and the afternoon crowd is in and from time to time I get that look of “What are you doing bringing your daughter to a bar?” Screw them. I have two girls and they are older than the kid I’m here with. Sam, short for Samantha, that’s her name. After the third drink she tells me. She tells me a lot of things that afternoon—that she is out of work, that she has been in town for just over two years, that she likes a man who can hold his booze, and that she always takes a nap in the afternoon, but she hates to sleep alone. I’m old, but I’m not dead. We finish our drinks, make a stop at the corner liquor store and walk to her place.

Melody and Betty are still in the kitchen. Melody is still trying to get daddy or June on the phone and is still having no luck at all. Betty tells her for about the umpteenth time, “Call a tow company; call a cab.”

“Mom, you don’t really expect me to show up in a cab.”

Betty has had all she can take. She reaches into her purse and gets two cards. One is her AAA road service card, and the other has a list of days and times for her AA meeting. She gives her AAA card to Melody and tells her to take care of the flats herself and that she really needs a meeting after today. Melody watches in disbelief as Betty walks down the street and disappears around the corner.

Billy is sitting in June’s small apartment and June is back to her same old talkative self, fixing coffees for the two of them. Dinner is already on the stove and she keeps going from the kitchen to the living room and back to the kitchen. Billy feels at home here and at ease with June. When she comes into the living room again, he tells her to sit for a minute. She moves to the chair across from him, but he pats the cushion next to him and tells her to sit for a minute. June sits down next to him, he puts his arm around her and she leans in, putting her head on his shoulder. For the first time today she is quiet, but then she says softly, slowly, without moving her head from its new home, “You don’t have to leave. Not tonight; not ever.”