He was about to take a step when he heard a sound.

The cabin door opening.

He threw himself into the tall grass, lay still.

Footsteps on the deck. Creaking.

Scared to move and more scared not to, he lifted his head, looked out above the grass.

Leni stood at the edge of the porch, with a wool blanket wrapped around her in a cape of red and white and yellow stripes. She was holding a roll of toilet paper; moonlight set it aglow.

“Leni,” he said.

She looked over, saw him. Worriedly, she glanced back at the cabin, then ran for him.

He stood, pulled her into his arms, held her tightly. “Are you okay?”

“He’s building a wall,” Leni said, glancing back.

“That’s what those logs are for out at the road?”

Leni nodded. “I’m scared, Matthew.”

Matthew started to say, It will be all right, but he heard the cabin lock hitch.

“Go,” Leni whispered, shoving him away.

Matthew threw himself into the cover of trees just as the door opened. He saw Ernt Allbright step out onto the porch, dressed in a ragged T-shirt and baggy boxer shorts. “Leni?” he called out.

Leni waved. “I’m here, Dad. Just dropped the TP.” She cast a desperate glance back at Matthew. He hid behind a tree.

Leni walked over to the outhouse, disappeared inside of it. Ernt waited for her on the porch, herded her back inside as soon as she was done. The door lock latched with a click behind them.

Matthew retrieved his bicycle and rode home as fast as he could. He found Large Marge and his dad standing together in the yard, beside Marge’s truck.

“H-he’s building a wall,” Matthew said, his breath coming in gasps. He jumped off his bike and dropped it in the grass by the smokehouse.

“What do you mean?” Dad said.

“Ernt. You know how their land is a bottleneck and then flares out over the water? He’s skinned two logs and laid them across the driveway. Leni says he’s building a wall.”

“Jesus,” Dad said. “He’ll cut them off from the world.”

* * *

LENI WOKE TO THE high-pitched whirring of the chain saw and the occasional whack of a hatchet splitting wood. Dad had been up for hours, all weekend, building his wall.

The only bright spot was that she had survived the weekend and now it was Monday again, a school day.

Matthew.

Joy pushed aside the cramped, hopeless feeling of loss this weekend had birthed. She dressed for school and climbed down the ladder.

The cabin was quiet.

Mama came out of her bedroom dressed in a turtleneck and baggy jeans. “Morning.”

Leni went to her mother. “We have to do something before the wall is finished.”

“He won’t really do it. He was just crazed. He’ll see reason.”

“That’s what you’re going to rely on?”

Leni saw for the first time how old her mother looked, how drawn and defeated. There was no light in her eyes anymore, no ready smile.

“I’ll get you coffee.”

Before Leni made it to the kitchen, a knock rattled the cabin door. Almost simultaneously the door swung open. “Hullo, the house!”

Large Marge strode forward. A dozen bracelets clattered on her fleshy wrists, earrings bobbed up and down like fishing lures, catching the light. Her hair was growing out again. She’d parted it down the middle and tied it into two pom-pom balls that flopped as she moved.

Dad pushed in behind the black woman, put his hands on his bony hips. “I said you couldn’t go in, g-damn it.”

Large Marge grinned and handed Mama a bottle of lotion. She pressed it into her hands, closed her big hands over Mama’s small ones. “Thelma made this from the lavender growing in her backyard. She thought you’d love it.”

Leni could see what this small kindness meant to her mother.

“We don’t want your charity,” Dad said. “She smells just fine without putting on that shit.”

“Girlfriends give each other gifts, Ernt. And Cora and I are friends. That’s why I’m here, in fact. I thought I’d have coffee with my neighbors.”

“Would you get Marge some coffee, Leni?” Mama said. “And maybe a piece of cranberry bread.”

Dad crossed his arms, standing with his back to the door.

Large Marge led Mama to the sofa, helped her to sit, then sat beside her. The cushion popped beneath the woman’s weight. “Really, I wanted to talk to you about my diarrhea.”

“Good Christ,” Dad said.

“It’s been explosive. I wondered if you’d come across any home remedies. Good Lord, the cramping has been awful.”

Dad muttered an expletive and left the cabin, slamming the door shut behind him.

Large Marge smiled. “Men are so easy to outthink. So, now it’s just us.”

Leni handed out coffees and then sat down in the old Naugahyde recliner they’d bought at a junk store in Soldotna last year.

Large Marge’s gaze moved from Cora, to Leni, and back to Cora. Leni was sure that it missed nothing. “I don’t imagine Ernt was pleased about Thelma’s decision at Earl’s funeral.”

“Oh. That,” Mama said.

“I see the posts he’s dug out on the main road. Looks like he’s building a wall around this place.”

Mama shook her head. “He won’t.”

“You know what walls do?” Large Marge said. “They hide what happens behind them. They trap people inside.” She put her cup down on the coffee table, leaned toward Mama. “He could put a lock on that gate and keep the key and how would you escape?”

“H-he wouldn’t do that,” Mama said.

“Oh, really?” Large Marge said. “That’s what my sister said the last time I talked to her. I would do anything to go back in time and change what happened. She’d finally left him, but it was too late.”

“She left him,” Mama said quietly. For once, she didn’t look away. “That’s what got her killed. Men like that … they don’t stop looking for you until they find you.”

“We can protect you,” Large Marge said.

“‘We’?”

“Tom Walker and me. The Harlans. Tica. Everyone in Kaneq. You’re one of us, Cora, you and Leni. He’s the outsider. Trust us. Let us help.”