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eventually be getting an apartment.
    You guys can still see each other.”
     
    “My dad says it’s best if we were out there,” Pixie said. Dad plays a big part in this girl’s life, Teresa thought. She looked back at Sexton. He was staring at her now. His eyes had a penetrating, dark quality. Now he’s trying to intimidate me, she thought. She’d dealt with men like that before. She’d had a lot of practice in the steel business. Teresa stared right back. “Well, it’s not going to happen,”
    she said firmly. “Joey is not going to Montana. His main obligation right now is to take care of his brother. It is not to follow you guys out west.” She remained cordial saying goodbye. But couldn’t wait to get off that deck. A few weeks later, Joey came home from work depressed. “It’s off,” he said. Teresa wondered, the trip to Montana?
    “Me and Pixie,” he said. She didn’t want to see him anymore. Teresa Boron thought, Thank God Joel found a job at a local nut and bolt manufacturer. Teresa Boron helped him find his own apartment on Sixth Street, a one bedroom with a kitchen, living room, and bath. Her older sister Velva also pitched in for the move. Teresa gave him an old couch. Velva bought him new towels. They both equipped him with dishes and kitchen utensils. Velva could practically see his apartment from her two bedroom home on Park Avenue. “You’re moving him close to me because you know I’m close enough to watch him,”
     
    Velva said. The whole family worried about him, not only Teresa and Velva, but their parents Lewis and Gladys and their brother Sam.
    They’d all had a hand in raising him. They all wanted to see him find independence, but they were concerned about his trusting nature. “You would have to know Joey to understand,” Velva would later say. “He was a good, gentle person. But he was also very naive.” Velva was as close to Joey as Teresa. She, too, thought of him as a son. Joey and his brother Danny had spent weekends with Velva when his mother was dying. When Linda passed, her will gave Velva custody of her sons.
    They stayed with her and her husband for two years on their 40-acre farm in Mineral City, 20 minutes south of Canton. Then, when Velva’s marriage failed, the boys moved in with their parents. Joey had finished high school at Teresa’s while Velva got her life back on track. Velva did watch Joey. She was working the day shift putting together baby strollers and car seats at Century Products. But she found time to drop by to see him, bringing food or items he might need for the apartment. He didn’t have a telephone. So every time she heard an ambulance, she’d find herself going outside to look down the street, making sure it hadn’t stopped at his apartment complex. Velva couldn’t help but admire his tenacity. He nursed his Datsun to the bolt factory. On days it wouldn’t start, he’d mount his bike, thinking nothing of pedalling five miles to work. The company was using him everywhere in the plant, boxing, sorting, and shipping. Soon he was running a production machine. He’d qualified for health care benefits and was earning vacation time. With his paychecks, he bought his own stereo, then a TV and VCR. Then, after New Years 1991, Pixie Sexton showed up again in Joel Good’s life. Velva had just come home from work. She found them all sitting on her living room couch. Not only Joey and Pixie, but two children, a 3-year-old hanging onto her knee, the other an infant, cradled in a baby seat. The older girl was Dawn.
    The second child was called Shasta. Pixie had given birth in November, 1990. That was more than a year after Joel and Pixie had broken up.
     
    They were dating again, Joey said. “I came right out with it and asked her,” Velva later recalled. “Do you know who the daddies are? Are they the same daddies or different daddies?”
     
    “I don’t know.”
     
    “Joey, do you know what you’re doing?” Velva asked. She looked at