Mohawk

last night. For some reason though, when he first saw her standing there on the other side of the screen, he had imagined—could it have been a memory?—that she had been wearing a nightgown, the shadowy outline of her breasts just visible behind the fabric. Dallas tried to think why he should have imagined such a sight. “What would I have been doing here,” he asked, genuinely curious.
    “You were drunk. I told you to get lost. You really don’t remember?”
    “Did I have my teeth?”
    Loraine shot him a pained look that contained little sympathy. “Not again.…”
    Dallas nodded, pulling a chair from the kitchen table, and sat, the little girl still on his lap. Dawn pulled up her dress to show him her panties, which featured an embroidered pig. She leaned back as far as she could, her knees high in the air, so he could have the full benefit of the pig. “Will you take me to Chickey Fried Chicken?”
    “You mean the Kentucky Colonel? All the way to Schenectady?”
    Dawn nodded eagerly and smoothed her dress back down.
    “At times I still can’t believe you and David were brothers,” Loraine said.
    “Uncle Dallas says it’s my birfday.”
    “How would he know? He doesn’t even know where his teeth are.” Loraine squinted at him. “What are those in your mouth?”
    “Spares. You mean it’s not her birthday?”
    “You insisted the same thing last night. It isn’t till the middle of the month.”
    “And I had my teeth?”
    “It was three in the morning, Dallas. I don’t remember. Though I think I would have noticed if you didn’t.”
    Since there now appeared to be a consensus that today was not her birthday, Dawn squirmed down from her uncle’s lap and went to her mother, clutching her robe with one hand, inserting the other, nearly the whole fist, in her own mouth.
    “Come back here.”
    “No,” the little girl said, coyly refusing to look at him.
    “What was that on your underwear?”
    “Pig,” said Dawn through her fist.
    “I don’t believe it,” Dallas said, but his niece refused to take the bait.
    “Go back outside if you’re going to sulk,” her mother said. “And take your hand out of your mouth.”
    When Dawn didn’t obey, Loraine removed it. “Don’t want to go outside,” Dawn whined, her eyes filling with tears. “It’s my birfday.”
    “Thanks a lot,” Loraine said.
    “Come here,” Dallas clapped his hands. “Be my girl.” But instead the child ran outside and let the screen door slam behind her. 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