My room is tiny and dark and smells like sweaty sheets. The window is wide open, but there’s still no air. A heavy pre-lightning gloom overwhelms my clankity-clank fan.

He’d pick me up from Mama’s early Saturday while she slept, always waiting in his truck down the street and staring down the sun while gnashing on a spicebush twig.

Their mother works hard, but the girls are unkempt and secretive, given to a layered, sarcastic wit.

It was March before anyone noticed. The first was Merlene Svensgard, whose husband Al had died on New Year’s Eve while he and Merlene were counting down the final seconds along with Dick Clark on TV.

One day he was cock-of-the-walk, full of jokes and juice, strumming his guitar, waxing the big fins on his red Chevy, knowing another woman in the biblical sense.

Brake lights on a highway. Not her favorite sight. It must be an accident. Or road construction. Either way, it wasn’t right. Not when they were so close to home.