Let sleeping dogs lie for now. Antonia has done all she can. But as she gets into bed, she feels unsettled as well as irritated, above all else with Sam for leaving her alone to do justice to the things they believed in.

You want me to be a better person, then come back and help me out, she addresses the darkness of their bedroom. She watches with hawk eyes for the slightest sign of some kind. The air circulator hums awake. The outdoor floodlights flash on—she can see the glow from her bedroom window. Sam had those movement lights installed, thinking they’d deter deer from getting in his garden. Trigger-happy, they turn on if a squirrel darts by. If the wind is coming strong from the north. Drives her batty. Worrying each time that it might be an intruder. And now, especially. Out in the fields surrounding her house, the coydogs have started up their howling, a haunting sound, but not otherworldly, just a part of the natural world.

Anything else you need? she had asked Mario, a throwaway question in the circles she runs in, but in some parts of the world, among the neediest, what has been thrown away elsewhere gets recycled, put to good use. The lights flash on again and again, then fade away. Tomorrow, which is already today, she will call the electrician who installed them to have them taken down. She wants outdoor lights she can turn off and on. The world is a crazy place. But she doesn’t need to be alerted each time a dragon comes close.

two

Where is Burkina Faso?

She waits until a light comes on in the trailer, Mario and José getting up for the first milking of the day. And to think: this happens before dawn every morning, with or without her insomnia to note it.

Wouldn’t it make a great book? She had mentioned it several times to Sam. Short chapters about the people who keep our world going? Invisible people we don’t even know about?

Invisible to whom? Sam had a way of asking questions that always stopped her short.

It would make a great book, Sam agreed once she explained.

Antonia has a pile of these ideas in a shoebox she used to keep in her office at the college. For students who said they had nothing to write about. Here, pick one, she’d offer. She misses them, her access to the young. Another downside to being childless, which, she read recently, is no longer the politically correct term. Nonparent carries no judgment. Childless mother, a former colleague called herself. Maybe others share her intense need to get the words right. But what if their right words sound wrong to her?

Is this what happens to an imagination in old age, a bag lady of great ideas, a snapped necklace, the beads scattering? Years later, she finds the odd trinket: a shiny blue bead with a hole through it. Where did it come from? A lost piece that has left something else incomplete. Along with the shoebox, Antonia has a tin for such findings. Years from now, the item it was a part of will surface, and she will supply the missing bit, making the thing whole again.

Could that possibly be what the afterlife amounts to: an eternity of rememberings? Over to you, Sam. She talks to him in her head. You always liked being the one to know. But the afterlife has changed him. He no longer seems interested in having the last word.

*

She decides to walk over to her neighbor’s. If she drives, Roger will hear the car, come out, ask questions. He gets a whiff of any trouble and he’ll rescind the week of grace. Last time there were rumors of raids on Vermont farms, Roger dismissed his workers. Mario and José are recent hires. Antonia has no idea where their predecessors went. Now that she has stopped volunteering, she’s no longer in the migrant gossip loop. Maybe Roger’s former workers went to another patrón in Vermont? To Canada? Maybe back to Mexico? Everybody knows not to build a house on shifting sand. Good for temporary shelters, but a home needs a foundation.

It’s still dark. The sun is not yet up. The road is deserted; tall pines on either side make for creepy stretches. In a few hours, the sky will flood with that early-spring watercolor light that can bring tears to her eyes. The road will get busy with what passes for busy on a dirt road in backcountry Vermont: the school bus whose driver waves by lifting a finger; the newspaper delivery man who she has heard has a terrible stutter—she wouldn’t know, she has never spoken to him; the garbage truck driven by a guy with a shaved head, a leering look, who slows down, then floors the gas, probably in disappointment that the little lady turns out to be a little old lady. All these lives that are not her life. Bless them all, she thinks, even the garbage guy—before she can think again that she has no credentials for blessing anyone.

It’s chilly. She quickens her steps. In a break in the trees, she sees a few stars still shining. Have you ever noticed how the stars are brightest on the coldest nights?

You always say that, Sam would say, chuckling.

Remind me again, where is Burkina Faso?

That made him chuckle, too. It became their code phrase. A way of reminding each other to stay humble, as there would always be things they didn’t know.

The walk is invigorating. Maybe she’ll do this every morning. Instead of yoga. Take a walk. “Weather permitting,” Vermonters’ version of si Dios quiere. She’ll be one of those invisible people in the book she will never write. Not that she is doing anything useful to keep the world going. Except to keep herself going. The best thing she can do for the people she loves is to take care of herself. But what if that person she loves the most no longer needs her stoicism?

Her mind flashes back to the troubling talk with Tilly about Izzy—was it only yesterday? She wonders about Mona’s diagnosis that their sister is seriously ill. But then Mona is always diagnosing everyone—a professional handicap for a therapist, much like quoting is for Antonia, the teacher. Izzy is just being Izzy. Sure she’s made some poor choices, but then haven’t they all?

She’s used up all her savings, Tilly reported hearing through the grapevine. No, Tilly can’t say who told her. (Easy to do the math on that one: not Antonia, couldn’t be Izzy telling on herself, ergo Mona.)

Savings? Antonia challenged. Izzy has savings? That’s a total oxymoron.

Tilly’s feathers were ruffled. Who are you calling a moron?

She’s always saying she’s broke.

Well she gave a pile of money to that guy in Cuba—

Wait! She was in Cuba?

See what I mean? Tilly says triumphantly.

She’s having a good time anyhow, Antonia defended their sister. But was Izzy really enjoying herself? And what was going to happen when Izzy reached old age having burned every bridge to safety and solvency? Antonia knows what Izzy would say. How do you think most of the world’s viejitos live—if they even get to be old?

She recalls Mario talking about his frail mother, pobrecita, getting so old. She can’t walk anywhere anymore. How old is your mother? Antonia had asked. Cincuenta y cuatro. Fifty-four! Do you know how old I am, Mario? The young man didn’t dare a guess. No puede ser, do?ita, he exclaimed when she told him. Sesenta y cinco! Of course, one has to factor in other variables. Just as a year in the life of a dog is equivalent to seven human ones—so she has heard from Mona, the dog lover—poverty years have to be more aging than affluent ones.

How does the imagination of the poor age? Perhaps from much practice over the course of a lifetime—always having to imagine a better life—it stays vigorous. At a recent reading at the college, a guest lecturer spoke about the origins of Black English. This rich folk language is what occurred when African people with an intensely musical and oral culture came up against the King James Bible and the sweet-talking American South, under conditions that denied them all outlets for their visions and gifts except the transformation of the English language into song.

So are songs and stories what we come to when we are divested of all other protections and privileges? These fragments I have shored against my ruins? The Waste Land was always a favorite with her students, many of whom had known only plentitude. And what about those who cannot bear up under deprivations, who are traumatized and silenced by hard times? If she ever gets back to writing, Antonia wants the stories she tells—like the writers she depends on—to come from that deeper, hurting place. Perhaps grief will be good for her work?

If so, thanks, but no thanks. Once again she is talking to Sam as if he has offered her this consolation for his absence.