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In a minute the swing squeaked into motion.
    “I could make you some eggs,” Loraine offered.
    Dallas shook his head. “I’m late for work.”
    He didn’t object to the cup of coffee, though, which Loraine poured without asking him. “Then I lost them someplace between here and home. Assuming I went home.”
    “You promised you would,” Loraine said. “You were talking about stopping by the grave, but I made you promise not to.”
    Dallas frowned. “Grave. What grave?”
    “Your brother’s. Whose do you think?” She sat down opposite him and put the cream pitcher between them.
    “Why would I go there?”
    “You were in one of your maudlin moods. I really wish you’d stay away when you get like that. I feel the same way half the time myself, and I don’t need any encouragement.”
    Dallas said he was sorry, and he was, too, though in much the same way he was sorry about a rainy day or something else he had no control over. When he dranktoo much, he nearly always blacked out and had to depend on people to tell him what he’d been up to, and because he was often told that he became sentimental at such times, he supposed it must be true, though he couldn’t say for sure.
    “My daughter doesn’t need to be woke up in the middle of the night either,” Loraine went on. “She’s got enough on her mind. She’s been scared as hell ever since David.”
    “Scared of what?”
    “She doesn’t know. Who ever needed a reason?”
    Loraine looked a little scared herself right then, and Dallas felt ashamed of his behavior. He wished he could remember his behavior, so he could feel even worse about it. It wasn’t fair that Loraine should feel frightened, and even more unfair that little Dawn should be. When he finished his coffee, Loraine quickly cleared the cups and saucers, and he watched her at the sink, trying to think if there was something he could do for her or the little girl. He had promised his brother he would do what he could for them, but even at the time he hadn’t any idea what that might be.
    Loraine rinsed the cups in the sink and dried them carefully with a thin dish towel before putting them back in the cupboard. When she and David had married, Loraine was a very pretty girl with soft skin and lovely brown hair. People had wondered out loud how such a shy, studious boy like David had done so well, especially since in addition to being pretty Loraine had a reputation for being a little wild. Those who made book on other people’s chances gave them long odds. But David was kind and attentive, qualities that were more or less new to Loraine and that she discovered she liked. According to those who knew her best, shesimply changed overnight, returning her husband’s devotion as if, without a word of discussion, he had somehow convinced her to forget about wildness in favor of himself and the life he had to offer, which was pleasant and satisfying if not always terribly exciting.
    Loraine also discovered early in their marriage that there was nothing she could do to alter his love for her, and when she first noticed that she’d put on a few pounds, that the curves of her body were straightening, she refused to be disappointed in herself. Since he didn’t appear to notice the way she was thickening, she repaid the favor by telling herself that she did not mind her young husband’s receding hairline, nor that the drain was always full of his dark hair after he showered. Only Dallas, who often visited them on Sundays, made her feel a little self-conscious about her appearance, because he was an unmerciful tease. After a while, though, he stopped ribbing her. She never knew why. At first she thought maybe David made him stop, but then a more plausible explanation occurred to her—that Dallas stopped the ribbing when what he was saying became too true to be good fun any more. She had got very big with Dawn and somehow never quite lost the shapelessness of postpregnancy. Now she thought it might be nice