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The door to the trailer won't open. Cooper's truck is gone and Mac has not been granted key-keeping status, but he can hear Sylvia stomping inside. He knocks. No response. He keeps on. After a while the child's face appears in the window; she's whisked away and he knocks again.

Shortly after, he drives down 80 to PeGe's for ice cream. He stands by one of the outside tables, looking at the overpass toward Rayville. Something bothers him about not being able to see the highway past the overpass—the woods and fields and swamps out that way. It's already out of the city limits.

He goes back and tries the trailer again. This time Sylvia opens the door and asks what the hell he wants. He cannot think to merely say he lives here, and shrugs.

She's cleaning the place. Everything is strewn, rearranged, unkempt, in transit. She walks away from the open door. He makes a quick check on his space and eases back into the living area.

 "In three years, he promised me," Sylvia says. "Three years and we would have a house. A real house." She's wearing a sundress, instead of the usual cutoffs and a shirt of Cooper's. She has a sunburned aspect, curious.

 "I ain't staying in this sorry trailer."

No response from Mac.

"And if you think I am I'll kick your bohunkus out of this place."

Mac is at a loss. He offers what's left of his ice cream cone. She makes a retching sound.

He returns to his bedspace. It will be dark soon and he wonders where Cooper is. When he left the warehouse early in the afternoon Mac thought it had been to go home.

Mac realizes he's been asleep when Sylvia calls his name from the living room. The hall is dark and he stumbles on a reeking pile of clothes. He can hear the child crying before he sees her.

He's pretty sure Sylvia called him.

Sylvia is sitting on the couch, laughing. There's a hard definition to her lips, almost white, like the lipstick women used to wear from somewhere in his remembering. The child is sprawled on the floor whimpering, face down.

"Look—there's Mac! Pull your dress up for Mac! Pull it up like we do for Daddy!" The child refuses, crying louder.

Sylvia laughs soundlessly, almost in tears of hilarity. "Look—like Mommy—pull it up! Together now!" She lifts the generously flowing hem over her face.

To Mac the scene is remote and sourceless. Sylvia's underwear is utilitarian white and typical enough. In the first instant he sees a woman, nothing more or less; someone like himself only different. Yet the glimpse contains the shock of the unrecognizable, as though what was concealed were something impossible.

Sylvia pulls her dress down, then flashes Mac again with an odd flushed look on her face, watching the child on the floor. The child wails and Sylvia doubles over in amusement, struggling for breath.

Mac has not moved when she suddenly stops laughing and sees him—as if for the first time. "You sick creep!" The hem is immediately yanked down to her knees. Her eyes are frightened, caught. "Don't you dare touch me! Don't even think about it."

"Uh, I wasn’t, I . . .”

You sorry pervert!  Get out of here, now.  I’ll tell him, and he will make you sterile with a knife before you can call home!!”

Mac quickly makes for the door. The prostrate child lies frozen on the carpet. Sylvia's threats give way into ascending howls.

It's another motel night.

 

 

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