Mohawk

him. It made him grateful that women didn’t play poker, because then he’d always be folding and raising at the wrong times, a problem he had anyway.
    “Don’t you ever wish someone would take care of you?” Loraine said. “Cook you a meal? Iron you a shirt? Someone who’d always know where your teeth were?”
    “Keep it up.”
    She frowned. “That’s no answer.”
    “No, then. I don’t want anyone to take care of me. I live the way I want.”
    “That’s crazy. Nobody lives the way they want.”
    “If you want to meet somebody new, get out of the house. Who’s going to come over here looking for you?”
    “That’s just it. I’m not even sure I want to meet anybody. I hated dating, even as a teenager. All that being nice when you don’t feel like it. All the time wishing you were cleverer and better looking than you are. I haven’t got the stomach for it any more. I can’t even get up the nerve to look for a job.”
    “I’ve talked to a couple people,” Dallas lied. “Something will turn up.” He made a mental note to really look around. He hated telling lies to people he liked, but maybe he would be able to find Loraine work. That would make up for it.
    “Don’t use up any favors,” Loraine told him. “When push comes to shove, maybe I won’t have the guts.”
    “What else can you do?”
    “Sell the house, live off that for a while. After Dawn is grown up, I don’t care that much.”
    As if on cue, the little girl cried out upstairs and Loraine started from the table.
    “Want me to go up,” Dallas asked.
    “Not really. All you know how to do is tickle.”
    Alone, Dallas went into the living room and found the paper. He started with the sports section, which quickly absorbed his thoughts. It would’ve been nice to read out loud if there’d been somebody to read to. He would’ve liked to get his brother all red-faced just one more time. Subconsciously he lifted his bridge freeof the roof of his mouth with his tongue, then let it slip back in again. He’d been without his own front teeth since he was nineteen, when he got into a fight and refused to give in, even after taking a terrible beating. The loss of his teeth didn’t bother him much, even at the time, but his brother David had unraveled. Coming to see Dallas in the hospital, David didn’t even recognize him at first. Dallas’s face was swollen and gray and, when he grinned at his younger brother, the boy had broken down. Years later, after his marriage to Loraine, Dallas could still unhinge his brother by removing his partial and grinning at him. Once David was so angry he made Dallas promise never to do it again. “They’re gone,” Dallas had told him. “I don’t see why that should bother you if it doesn’t bother me.” But after that he rarely removed his teeth in his brother’s company.
    When Loraine came back downstairs, Dallas was completely absorbed by the college football line scores, and she studied him with interest from the foot of the stairs. Her late husband had been slight of build, his dark brown hair thinning badly after his twentieth birthday. Later, after the treatments, he was completely bald. Dallas’s hair was still thick and black, and he was sturdy at just under six feet. Anyone who didn’t know him might have mistaken Dallas’s thoughtful expression as he read the paper for profound intellect, and Loraine, who knew him well, couldn’t help wondering if her brother-in-law’s lunatic behavior might not mask a better mind than people gave him credit for. Everyone said his son Randall was very smart in school, and the boy must’ve inherited it from someone. Anne, perhaps, but maybe even Dallas. When people jokingly asked Dallas how he wound up with such a smart kid,Dallas explained by saying he’d had a smart milkman. In truth, Dallas himself was not convinced of his son’s intelligence.
    He finally became aware of her. “Fever’s finally broken,” she told him. “She’d like to see you.”
    He quickly rose and went to the foot of the narrow staircase. “Where’s my girl?”
    From above there came a delighted peal of laughter.

9
    Much to the delight of Mather Grouse, the autumn days stayed mild well into November. He felt like himself for the first time since early summer, and even the thought of the approaching winter and the bitter winds that would keep him housebound failed to dampen his spirits. Autumn had always been his favorite season, and in the afternoons he was