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By Root 461 0

of information that might serve him well, the one thing about her husband that would almost certainly break her heart and then possibly might one day set her free. Even McDermott, as out of touch with God as he is these days, understands that. He does his best to try not to think about it, though when he saw Sexton Beecher two weeks ago leaving the speak with the English girl, he was so furious (and yet so unforgivably elated) that he found it difficult even to talk to the man later that night. And it is all McDermott can do sometimes when they are riding in the truck together or working at the press or sitting at the dining table at the boardinghouse not to take the guy by the lapels and shake him hard and tell him to shape up. Doesn’t he see what he has at home? Doesn’t he know what he is jeopardizing? What is wrong with the fucking guy, anyway?

But, of course, McDermott knows perfectly well what is wrong with the fucking guy. He’s a guy. He’s lonely in town. He wants a girl. So what? If McDermott didn’t know Honora, he doubts he’d ever give the matter a second thought. None of his business is what he would think.

“What are you making?” he asks.

“Coleslaw,” she says.

Maybe he is a little bit hungry after all. He wonders if he’s got his medicine with him. With all this coming and going — beach to city, city to beach — the medicine is often not where it’s supposed to be.

“It’s exciting, being part of this,” she says.

“The city has come alive,” he says.

“I don’t know what I’ll do when you all leave,” she says. “I’ve come to hate being here by myself.”

“I’d have thought you’d be glad to see the back of us,” he says.

“I miss you guys when you’re gone.”

His heart, stupidly, leaps — willing to snatch at any crumb.

“I, for one, hate leaving here,” he says after a minute. “This house. I’ve enjoyed it.”

She licks a dollop of mayonnaise off her finger. “Thank you,” she says.

“I wouldn’t have an excuse to talk to you, for one thing,” he says, trying to make it light.

From the front room, McDermott can hear Vivian calling, Hey, doll. A chair scrapes against a wooden floor. Mironson says, I’m starved. Through the window McDermott hears the sound of waves crashing. The printing press starts up again.

Honora stares at the platter of sandwiches in front of her. “There’s a pitcher of lemonade in the icebox,” she says, “if you wouldn’t mind getting it.”

Honora

“No guns,” Mironson is saying.

Sandwiches and coleslaw make their way along the table. Vivian, in parchment batiste, fills glasses with lemonade. McDermott has not come to lunch. Through the doorway, Honora can see him leaning against the porch railing.

“But the picketers need to be able to defend themselves,” Sexton says from the middle of the table. Louis, in a shortsleeved white shirt, sits sideways, as if he were there but not entirely there. In his posture, he gives the impression of a man who is indescribably weary — which Honora thinks is probably the case. She wonders how it is that he does this for a living. Moving from town to town, following strikes, starting strikes, moving out, starting all over again. When this is finished, he will leave Ely Falls and enter into an entirely new community. She wonders if he minds, if he is ever lonely.

“No guns,” Louis repeats. “Militiamen cannot weave cloth. They instill fear, but they cannot by themselves break the strike.”

“But we’re getting the — excuse me, ladies — shit kicked out of us, and we have nothing to fight back with but stones.”

Honora thinks her husband might have been better served if he hadn’t used the word we — not only because Sexton himself clearly hasn’t had a hand laid on him, but also because Louis never pickets.

“This has to be done without violence,” Louis says. “It has to be this way. Yes, the bosses are just itching for a fight. They’re just itching for an excuse to bring out the machine guns and mow us all down.”

“Golly, I hope not,” Vivian says, smoothing her pleated skirt.

“No, not really,” Louis says. “But as good as. It won’t be machine guns, but it will be rifles and bayonets.