Outside it was not quite as dark as normal, the storm clouds carried light from the town. She thought she’d seen her son coming up the road. Maybe she’d just imagined it. You’re turning into an old lady, she thought, you’re going a little bit crazy. It was either tragic or funny. She decided it was funny. She was annoyed at her son—they were out of firewood and she was wrapped under two blankets and it wasn’t so much to ask, keep the wood split and the house warm. It was okay to be angry about that. It wasn’t as if they were going to freeze, there were electric baseboard heaters but they cost a fortune, it was out of the question to run them. The best thing would be installing propane or oil heat, but she hated living in a trailer and for years she’d been hoping to move out of it. Buying a real furnace, sinking money into the trailer, was like giving up. It was better to be cold. She got up and went to the window, looking through her reflection, but nothing was moving in the road or the field, just the quiet emptiness that was always there. She had never expected she would live in a trailer, never expected she would live in the country.
She looked back at her reflection. Forty- one and her hair had gone mostly gray, she’d stopped dying it when her husband moved out, to spite him or herself, she didn’t know, but she’d put on weight, too, it was bunching up under her chin. She’d always been a little heavy but it had never showed in the face. It seemed to her that even her eyes were going dull, burning down like old headlights. Soon enough she would have the kind of face you saw and could not imagine as anything but old. Cut the pity party, she told herself. You could take care of yourself a little better. She was right to let Virgil come back. Virgil would not have let the stoves sit empty.