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to have things finished , to have the trim finished and the paint finished and the tile finished. She wants the kitchen cabinets back up on the wall so she can have places to keep everything, so she’ll know where everything is . I need a calmer life, she says. I need places where things belong. Jack keeps telling her to wait until I’ve got it fixed up. Wait until we clear out that back room. Wait until we’ve got the office roughed in upstairs. She shakes her head, doesn’t want to wait. Last week she walked the halls, straightening the pictures, crying. I can’t live like this , she said. Not right now. Not this week. I can’t do this like this any more. He knew she meant the house, but he knew she meant everything else, too. She meant him. She sat at the table, head in her hands. I have to get out of here for a while, she said. I’m sorry. I am. But you’ll be fine with him. I know you will. I need—You’ve got to get this house cleaned up. You’ve got to finish the floors in here. The upstairs. You’ve got to finish all of this. And the wall, Jack, goddamnit, and the house across the street, another whole house—
    I’m trying, he said. I’m trying to make it nice for you.
    How is this nice?
    It will be, he said. It will. But then she was gone, out the door, and she was calling him twice, three times a day, making him lists of things he’d need to do for Hendrick, things to watch out for, things he already knew, things she knew he knew. You’re finding him new books to read? You’re making sure he has snacks in the afternoons? Same old CPR-poster Beth, now from a distance. She’s been coming over once a day, or meeting them out for lunch, or just taking Hen for an hour. She’s left him, and she hasn’t. And Hen’s handling it, is bearing up: He’s his same old self, working through his same old routines. That first call, though, the first night, Saturday night, when the little light-up display showed Canavan’s number, Jack did not handle it so well. Where are you, exactly , Jack wanted to know, already knowing, because there it was, right there. About that, she said. Now, Jack, don’t flip out. He flipped out a little bit. Yelled a little bit. He hasn’t really yelled that much since then. He’s not sure what he’s supposed to be doing about it. Something, though. He’s supposed to do something. He’s sure he is. He just does not know what.

    Canavan comes back around the side of the house, waving his phone in the air. He grins. “Rainmaker,” he says, talking to Jack like Beth isn’t and never has been standing in the door. “Lady’s kids want a stand of pines taken out of her front yard. Over by Kinnett. Right almost on campus. Huge trees. I’ve driven by the place. Pretty easy job. But big. Five grand, maybe more. Plus, if we cut it right, if we can get it shredded, there’s got to be fifty or sixty yards in it for you. So another thousand right there.”
    “That’s great,” says Jack.
    “Yeah,” Canavan says. “It could be.”
    “It’s just all coming out perfectly for you, isn’t it?”
    “It’s money for both of us,” Canavan says.
    “Outstanding,” Jack says. “Really.”
    “It’s just business,” says Canavan, putting his phone back in its holster. He has a holster for his phone. He stands there, hand on his belt, king of the castle. “Listen,” he says. “I don’t know, OK?”
    “About what?” Jack says.
    “About I don’t know. About anything.”
    “OK,” Jack says. “Great.”
    Canavan points at Hen. “You want to take him inside?” he says.
    “I guess,” says Jack. In the truck, Hen’s reciting the progression of oak trees from the catalog—he’s saying Sawtooth Oak, Pin Oak, White Oak, Swamp Oak. Jack knows them, too, knows the list, finds himself mouthing the names along with him. This was a dumbass move, bringing him over here. He sees that now. He can’t do this. He can’t leave him here with Beth at Terry Canavan’s sweet little