Mohawk

even at the time he hadn’t any idea what that might be.
    Loraine rinsed the cups in the sink and dried them carefully with a thin dish towel before putting them back in the cupboard. When she and David had married, Loraine was a very pretty girl with soft skin and lovely brown hair. People had wondered out loud how such a shy, studious boy like David had done so well, especially since in addition to being pretty Loraine had a reputation for being a little wild. Those who made book on other people’s chances gave them long odds. But David was kind and attentive, qualities that were more or less new to Loraine and that she discovered she liked. According to those who knew her best, shesimply changed overnight, returning her husband’s devotion as if, without a word of discussion, he had somehow convinced her to forget about wildness in favor of himself and the life he had to offer, which was pleasant and satisfying if not always terribly exciting.
    Loraine also discovered early in their marriage that there was nothing she could do to alter his love for her, and when she first noticed that she’d put on a few pounds, that the curves of her body were straightening, she refused to be disappointed in herself. Since he didn’t appear to notice the way she was thickening, she repaid the favor by telling herself that she did not mind her young husband’s receding hairline, nor that the drain was always full of his dark hair after he showered. Only Dallas, who often visited them on Sundays, made her feel a little self-conscious about her appearance, because he was an unmerciful tease. After a while, though, he stopped ribbing her. She never knew why. At first she thought maybe David made him stop, but then a more plausible explanation occurred to her—that Dallas stopped the ribbing when what he was saying became too true to be good fun any more. She had got very big with Dawn and somehow never quite lost the shapelessness of postpregnancy. Now she thought it might be nice if Dallas would start teasing her again, but he never did. When he commented at all, it was to say that she looked well, and since she knew that wasn’t true, the compliment had the opposite effect of what was intended.
    Indeed, as he watched her at the sink, he did feel bad for Loraine. With her husband gone and more than half her life ahead of her, it seemed to him that she needed to be prettier than she was. “So,” he said whenshe turned around and discovered him looking at her, “how are you making out?”
    She dried her hands on the dish towel and looped it through the refrigerator door handle. “Fine. How can you look at these lavish surroundings and ask such a question?” Her sweeping gesture included not just the kitchen, but the rest of the house, the yard, the neighborhood, and probably all of Mohawk.
    “I’m serious,” Dallas said, feeling immediately the silliness of his remark, since Loraine was obviously serious too. Her attitude in this respect was inexplicable to him, partly because her surroundings
were
quite lavish compared to his. Admittedly, there was a threadbare quality to the house. Even when David was alive, they had been forced by necessity to make do with things until they were used up. Now what had once been simply thin was close to transparent, like the dish towel Loraine had used to dry her hands. But that was one of the things Dallas had always liked about his brother’s house. Dallas himself never wore anything out. He lost it before wear-and-tear became an issue. His clothing was never ragged, because when he went to the laundromat he always managed to leave at least one load in one of the machines. Loss was perhaps the central feature of his existence, and he had learned to accept it the way one does a scraped knuckle or skinned knee. In the long run things equaled out anyway. For every load of clothing he forgot in the washing machine, he gained another in the dryer. Tumbling towels and shirts inside one dryer often bore a striking resemblance to those in the next, and more than once Dallas had discovered, after shoving the spun-dry contents into his duffle bag and going home, that it wassome other man’s wardrobe he had inherited. Provided the clothes fit, or near enough, Dallas was content and his life various.
    Only when he visited his brother’s house and saw the sameness of things, the continuity of familiar objects, did he feel keenly dissatisfied with the lack of control he exercised over his