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  Paloma found it fitting that she was using the Corridor as her escape route. She was defeated too, an outcast here, even if she had fooled herself into thinking a few friends could make it bearable. If she stayed, they would probably burn her as a witch.

  With Ken, she was the nag—constantly forced to bring him back to reality. With Cassidy, she was the enforcer. She was exhausted from keeping the endless balls of home and family life in the air—scrubbing toilets, worrying about money—while Ken enjoyed scheming with their daughter about elaborate tree houses, taking her on walks in the woods, and generally being the fun parent.

  “We can talk to my mom.” Ken dismissed Paloma’s financial concerns, and then he did. Jane bailed them out, again and again. Paloma felt trapped in West Virginia and in the person it had turned her into.

  She was on 79 now, going north. Though the hills were white, the road was clear of snow—dark gray with freshly painted yellow lines. They could go to New York, maybe. Not Long Island. Maybe the city. Maybe Woodstock. Paloma would figure it out. She took stock of what they had in the car—a change of clothes in Cassidy’s bag, a wad of cash in the glove compartment, and a blanket and first aid kit in the trunk.

  “Where we going, Mama?” Cassidy’s little voice chimed from the back seat.

  “I’m not sure, honey. It will be a little adventure.”

  “Is Daddy coming?” Something in her daughter’s voice broke Paloma. As the bare trees whizzed by, she pictured the way Cassidy climbed onto Ken’s lap and the way she squealed with delight when he tickled her. She thought of the way she nuzzled into his furry chest as he sang. She couldn’t do this to either of them.

  Paloma exited the interstate, then got back on, heading south.

  “Change of plans. The adventure is at home.”

  Cassidy groaned. In front of them, a salt truck crept along, sprinkling the road, the crystals spattering their windshield. “Why it taking sooooo long?”

  Finally, back at the farm, Paloma unloaded her from the car and held her hand as they crunched up the steps to the porch. “Let’s paint,” Paloma said, after they’d hung up their coat and jacket. Jane sat snoring in the recliner, her mouth open. Cassidy stared past her sleeping grandmother out the window at the snowy yard, the taller plants poking through so that the hills looked like white waves. “No,” Paloma said with more determination. “Let’s go sledding.”

  Cassidy perked up. “Sledding! Let’s go! Sleddinnnnng!” She hopped from one foot to the other, then spun around in circles.

  Today, Paloma would be the good parent. She took Cassidy’s coat down from the hook again. She would be the good parent, even if Cassidy never knew how good. They tromped together through the trees to the top of the old strip mine. The incline would work well.

  The bleeding started as Cassidy sailed down the hill away from her. Everything, it felt, was moving out of her grasp.

  As the seasons carried on, Paloma no longer grew excited when her period came late, instead waiting for the day she would start to bleed again, heavy and painful. Cassidy began to read, sneak butcher shears from the kitchen drawer to cut her hair, and scream, “Go away!” at her mother. Paloma’s life, and what she had hoped for it, slipped further and further away.

  Paloma closed the baby registry tab. She opened Etsy, put a romper printed with the words “Mountain Made” into her cart, and had it sent to Noeli’s.

  Cassidy

  Cassidy couldn’t bring herself to sign into the cam site after the incident with Manny. Whenever she locked the guest room door and sat down in the corner beside the bowl of seashells, which had grown dusty since she’d moved in, she found herself staring at her computer like it might bite, unable to stop thinking about all the men she’d shared little details of her life with—little details they might be able to piece together to find her. She listed her equipment on Facebook marketplace, trying not to think about how much she’d paid for it all new, and got an offer three days later.

  She borrowed the Accord and met the woman in the parking lot of a place called Raspados Xtreme. Though it was winter, a line of people waited inside the shop to order shaved ice. Next door, the liquor store was even busier. On the other side of the lot was a party supply store, with a classic donkey piñata hanging outside and a sign that read Open, though the glass door was blockaded by a stack of plastic chairs.

  “Cassidy?” a woman asked, getting out of her car. She was shorter than she looked in her profile picture, and younger, too. She couldn’t have been more than twenty. Cassidy knew instantly that she was going to cam, and though she’d just met this woman, she felt protective of her.

  “Reina?”

  “Yes!” She was so cute and bubbly. Men would adore her.

  “Okay, so I have the stuff in my trunk. Do you want to open yours? You can give me the money, and then we can move it over.”

  “Sounds good!” The woman smiled and Cassidy almost cried. She was so innocent and genuine. Or she was great at pretending. Either way, she’d do great on cam.

  They completed the transaction and Reina waved. “Thanks again!”

  “Yeah, thank you. Take care.” Cassidy wanted to tell her more, like how it was worth it to get a PO Box and how she didn’t owe shit to anybody, but instead she got into Noeli’s car, counted her three hundred dollars, realized she should have done this before giving Reina the stuff, and tucked it in her bra, relieved it was all there.

  From there, she drove to a used car lot, a gravel square no bigger than the eight cars parked there, sandwiched between a mortuary and a squat concrete “boxing club” she’d passed several times accompanying Noeli to the grocery store. Cassidy bought the jenkiest car she’d ever seen, even jenkier than the Accord. Something rattled from the minute she turned the key to the minute she turned it off, and something else seemed to drag on the ground when she went over speed bumps. The tinted windows peeled and bubbled and the clock blinked 00:00 no matter what Cassidy tried. Noeli laughed when she saw it.

  “Look, it was three hundred dollars. What do you expect?”

  “I thought it might have a bumper.”

  Cassidy’s eyes widened and she went around to the back of the vehicle. “Oh my God, it doesn’t have a bumper. I didn’t even realize.”

  “It’ll be fine. You’re just going around Fontana. You don’t even need to take it on the freeway.”

  But when Cassidy got her first Instacart assignment that night, she realized the car wasn’t fine. Its trunk wouldn’t open. She piled the customer’s bags into the backseat and wondered what to do with the eggs. With a sigh, she got into her seat and set them on her lap. The customer turned out to be an old white man with a yard full of German shepherds who jumped and barked and growled when she rang the doorbell. The man watched Cassidy from the doorway as she made several trips back and forth with the groceries, then closed the door without a thank-you when she’d finished. When she looked back at the app, she saw he’d left her a two-dollar tip. She’d made twenty dollars total from the job.

  The next customer ordered only a bouquet from the floral department and didn’t tip. Cassidy made three dollars. The next ordered fifteen boxes of Fruit Loops, a bottle of rubbing alcohol, and a case of freezer bags. “There was a good sale,” the woman said when she answered the door. She held a coffee mug that seemed to be full of orange juice. With her other hand, she yanked the first bag away from Cassidy and threw it on the couch behind her. “Do you want to come in for a bowl?”

  “No, thank you,” Cassidy said. She decided she was done for the day. People in person were just as weird as people online.

  Back in the car, Christmas carols were on the radio, which worked surprisingly well, but “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” and “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” seemed totally out of place, in time and space, like the holidays were a play that Southern California pretended to be part of.

 
As she drove back toward Noeli’s, the word floating kept weaseling its way into Cassidy’s mind. There was nothing anchoring her anywhere—no relationship, no real job, no real money, no real home, no family anywhere close at all. Was bringing a baby into a life like that irresponsible?

  Cassidy accelerated, closing the gap she had allowed to open between her and the SUV ahead, her breathing accelerating, too. She pictured the car slipping on the wet asphalt, slamming into the bumper of the SUV. There was nothing holding anybody to this life. A baby wouldn’t anchor her. She drew closer and closer to the SUV. She was three feet from it, now two.

  At one, she took her foot off the gas, letting the SUV pull ahead. When she eased into the driveway, she saw that the Accord was gone; she felt relieved. She didn’t want to tell Noeli about her day yet, as funny as she would find it. Inside, Abuela turned from the old episode of Family Feud to watch Cassidy walk in.

  “Siéntate,” Abuela said, patting the arm of her chair. Cassidy obeyed. The old woman grasped her hand and held on through the commercials. It was like Grandma Jane was holding her hand through Abuela, Cassidy thought as she fought back tears. Abuela was her anchor here. She had to hold on.

  When Noeli returned twenty minutes later and saw them sitting together, hands still clasped, she smiled and came over. As Cassidy looked at Noeli, her usual admiration gave way to a stark, stinging jealousy. Noeli was home here. Her mom was here, even if she was an asshole. Abuela was here and sharp as ever. Noeli complained about the admin job she’d had forever at the medical supply company, but it was still a real job and it was secure.

  “Oil’s on the counter, Abuela,” Noeli said, oblivious to Cassidy’s envy. She kissed Antonia’s head from behind. As she did, she put her hand on Cassidy’s arm and squeezed, pulling Cassidy and Abuela even closer together in her embrace. “You two are fucking adorable.”

  Jane

  “Here’s your paper.” The aide smiled and set the Record Delta on the tray of Jane’s walker. The date on the top shocked her. Perhaps it was true, Jane admitted, what they said about her mind. She’d been slipping more and more. Still, 1944 was clear.

  Jane had read the ad for the air cadet dance again and again: “Nice local girls encouraged to apply.” She would meet someone and they’d get out of Buckhannon. Of course she’d wait for him here, but then after the war . . .

  “Jane! Fancy seeing you,” the secretary collecting the packets exclaimed. “I heard all about your time in Washington.” She knew the girl, a long-necked brunette with a button nose, from high school, but she could not remember her name. “I really am so sorry to hear about your . . .” The girl’s eyes darted around the room, landing on the black-shaded lamp on her desk. She let out a high-pitched sneeze. “Excuse me,” she said. The sleeves of her shirt clipped into her pale arms, leaving a red ring around them.

  It looked rather uncomfortable, Jane thought. “It’s quite all right.”

  “The thing is,” the girl said. She sneezed again, startling herself, jumping out of her seat a little. “The thing is . . . you’re a widow, yes?”

  Jane clenched her back teeth.

  “Well, the thing is, we’re to accept only girls who have never been married. I’m quite sorry about that, Jane. We just . . .”

  “Of course,” Jane said. “You wouldn’t want to upset the boys.”

  “That’s it. That’s the thing. I’m very sorry. I’m sure you understand.”

  “Quite clearly. Thank you.”

  She walked straight to Stone & Thomas. Below the ad for the dance, there’d been one about the store needing a new girl for the makeup department. From FBI to makeup girl. Jane supposed whatever was left of her dignity was worth the humor of it.

  She kept her chin up as well as she could manage, applying rouge to the crepe-paper cheeks of old women and doling out makeovers to teenagers before the high school’s prom. She joined civic clubs too—the Women’s Club and the rotary, the hospital auxiliary. The sense of sisterhood with a purpose was oddly comforting—the duty and meaning of her war work with the ease of a small town. Philip taught Jane, finally, to drive, and she shuttled herself to her job and various meetings. She may not have been happy, but at least she was busy.

  The war ended and her brothers came home. Though they brought only eleven arms back with them, there was enough joy in the small house to grow eight new ones. It seemed an unbelievable miracle that all six of them had returned, and the farmhouse was loud and boisterous, full of battle stories and much teasing for Jane.

  Downtown, people met on the sidewalk and slapped one another on the back, embracing on the corners. Jane held her breath as she passed houses where stars still hung in the windows, pillars of silence amid the general jollity.

  Soon after, a letter arrived—a rare missive from Ding. The end of the war in Washington was unlike anything she’d ever witnessed, she wrote. It was a party, the biggest party in the whole world.

  A knot tightened in Jane’s stomach as she read, imagining all of them—Ding, Claudine, Flossie, Erma, even Owen, out yelling in the streets. It must have been wonderful.

  “What’s Ding say, Janey?” Billy asked, mussing her hair and kissing her on the cheek. Jane smiled. She would not trade being here, crowded in with her brothers, for anything.

  “Just the scoop on Washington.” Billy nodded and opened the door of the new refrigerator, taking out a jar of milk and downing it in three long gulps. Billy put the empty jar in the sink, belched, and walked away. Jane shook her head but could not suppress a smile—even this felt festive.

  She turned her attention back to the letter. Ding would come home now that the war was over, surely, and she was eager for the details. What a reunion that would be! They would go to the pharmacies for old times’ sake, and then Jane would show her the makeup counter. What a hoot! Jane couldn’t wait until Ding saw that the farm had electricity.

  She read on. I’m not a duration girl, Jane. That’s what I’ve learned, Ding wrote. I truly love nursing. I’m committed to completing my training, no matter what.

  Jane’s heart sank.

  And that’s really what this letter is about, cousin. There’s a bit of a “what.” I’ve found myself in a situation. He’s a nice boy, thank goodness, and we went to the courthouse straight away. You should have seen the line! We’re certainly not the only honeymooners in the capital these days.

  Honeymooners. Ding had gotten herself into the same mess that Jane had, but now Jane was here and Ding was married with a baby on the way. Jane’s cheeks stung as if someone had slapped her.

  Cal and I will get a house in the suburbs. I do hope you’ll come when the baby’s born. I’m sure to need all the help I can get, as it will be right in the thick of second-year exams.

  Jane sat, stunned. She could hear two of her brothers wrestling in the yard outside, the others cheering them on. Ding was married. And pregnant. And staying. The war was over and things were returning, not to normal, but to a new configuration of it.

  But what about her?

  Jane had realized, then, that she had been thinking of her situation as “for the duration.” Though she hadn’t a clear picture of what would happen after, she’d felt certain that something would come up. She’d been in a holding pattern, flying in circles along with the rest of the world, but the world had begun moving again, and Jane had nowhere to go.

  With a deep breath, Jane opened the paper before her and read about new restaurants, new laws, people she didn’t know doing things she didn’t understand. She looked up to the picture of Cassidy she kept tacked by her chair and remembered—what a glorious thing it was to remember the present—the baby. The world was moving along without her again, but Jane understood, finally, that this was all right.

  Cassidy

  A seventy-degree Christmas gave way to a sixty-degree January. By fifty-degree February, Cassidy had reacclimated to the weather
, shivering in her sweats as her belly grew and the baby moved and danced.

  Cassidy watched in horror as her breasts swelled, blue veins bulging like spiderwebs across them, and as shiny stretch marks crossed her stomach like lightning bolts. She would never look the same again. But Noeli looked at her with fascination, wondering at the marvel of the human body and its ability to grow and change. As Cassidy struggled to tie her shoes one morning, Noeli knelt before her and took over. “Did you know your blood volume increases by forty to fifty percent when you’re pregnant?”

  By March the weather was warming again, and by May the extra resident in Cassidy’s body left her sweaty the moment she left the air-conditioning.

  After a particularly large Instacart order, Cassidy came home, sweaty from lifting and reaching, and found Noeli on the couch, her phone open to an article: “How to Be the Birth Partner Your Birthing Partner Needs.”

  She jumped when she realized Cassidy was standing behind her. “You must be exhausted! Sit down. Do you need anything?” Cassidy could hardly believe she’d ever felt jealous when Noeli had been nothing but amazing to her.

  “I need a car with a trunk that opens so I don’t have to reach across the seat all the time. It’s getting hard to balance with my belly.”

  “Maybe you need to quit.” Noeli stood and walked toward the kitchen.

  “I’d feel too guilty not contributing anything. You already do so much for me.”

  “Work in the home is still labor. It’s capitalism that devalues it,” Noeli said. “It might be invisible in the marketplace, but I see it. No one ever scrubbed the baseboards before you moved in.” Noeli poured a glass of water and handed it to Cassidy, who took a sip.

  “That’s just nesting. I don’t really do that much around here.”

  “You’re growing a human with your body. That’s work, too.”