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Again he was silent for a moment.
    “You get right away from me,” he said. This time when she laughed ever so gently, he turned his head toward her angrily. “It don’t seem right,” he said rapidly, fiercely. She felt herself retreating from his anger, searching for a way to respond that would give him nothing to use against her later.
    “Oh, come on, Kent,” she replied, choosing to make light of what he had said. “Remember when we first started sleeping together? Even up until after Jason was born? Would you want it to be like that again?” She could feel him remembering, the silence filled with their shared memories:her tears, her shame and her fear; his hurt, his frustration, and finally, his tense, silent anger. He snorted.
    “No way,” he said. They lay beside each other, not touching, closer now than they had been in sex, and then the said, half to himself, “I wonder if all the women get this way.”
    Selena thought of Lola and Phyllis, young mothers as she had been once herself, of Enid, really still a child, of Diane, and Margaret who was old. And then of Phoebe.
    “No,” Kent said. “They couldn’t all be like you are, or the boys wouldn’t do so much complaining.” He laughed, growing sleepy. But Selena thought of the time she had complained to the doctor that she was tired all the time, Jason was a year old then, and he had asked her if she had a regular sex life. You’d be surprised how many of the men around here are dead from the neck down, he said, and laughed. Seeing her embarrassment, he added quickly, the older ones, I mean.
    She closed her eyes, wondering again who they could be, still only able to half-believe what the doctor had said. Kent heaved himself onto his side, his back to her, and began to breathe deeply. When she was sure he was asleep, she crept out of bed, opened the curtains a crack so that a little moonlight shone in the room, then got back into bed.
    I’m going to try to get back in time to check the cattle late this afternoon, at least before dark,” Kent said. “You drive out and see where they are. Save us a couple of hours riding looking for them.” Selena, who was making sandwiches for the kids’ lunch kits and had her back to him, didn’t answer. “Where’s Phoebe?” he asked Jason, who had just come into the kitchen and sat down at the table beside him.
    “I dunno,” Jason said, reaching for a piece of toast. “Studying.”
    “She’ll miss the bus,” Kent said. “I suppose I could drop her off on my way to Swift Current.” He sounded indifferent, but Selena turned to Jason.
    “Did you wake up Mark?”
    “He’s coming,” Jason said, his mouth full.
    “He got any exams today?” Kent asked.
    “History,” Selena replied. “I drilled him last night when you were out in the shop. He knows it. He should do okay.”
    Kent pushed back his chair, went out into the hall and called up the stairs, “Mark, Phoebe, hurry up. Get down here. You’ll miss the bus!” In a moment Selena heard them thumping down the stairs, Mark, two steps at a time, and Phoebe’s light, even step behind him.
    “My last exam today,” she announced in a voice so breathless and high-pitched that Selena turned to look at her. She was wearing her usual tight jeans, even Kent had given up arguing with her about them, but today she had put on a new white blouse which brought out the freshness of her complexion and made her blue eyes look even bluer. Her father’s expression changed slightly when he looked at her.
    “Last one,” he repeated, and shook his head disbelievingly. “Till next year, anyway.” He glanced at Selena proudly, smiling.
    “I’m not even going to think about that,” Phoebe said, pulling out her chair. “Everybody says university is really hard.” Mark had sat down silently in his place.
    “No way you’ll catch me at university,” he said.
    “Me neither,” Jason echoed. Mark drank his orange juice in one gulp, while Selena set the three