"I never did figure him for a paterfamilias," Delmar remarked, from the shadow of the shade tree on which he leaned. Pete was slouched on a bench beside him.

"Yeah," said Pete.

"Never woulda thought he'd like little children enough to have so many."

"You don't have to like 'em to have 'em."

"Maybe." They both tracked, like history's slowest and most distant tennis match, the family McGill as it wove toward the railroad crossing. The daylight washed them out of sight before the turn did. They lived beyond, out toward the edge of town, in a pale green house with peeling paint and two screen porches. It smelled of Fels-Naptha and dirty laundry. You could hardly see the neighbors through the trees, and it was quieter inside and out than one might expect. The children were quieter, perhaps, than one might expect, given their parentage, and the wind in the aspens noisier.

"They quarreling?" asked Delmar.

"They ain't ever through quarreling."

"But they ain't really meant it too hard lately though. Not since the flood."

"Since the flood–since this morning?"

"Hardly seem like this morning."

"Any case, when it come to them...I don't know. That woman's mighty contradictory and Everett can't keep hisself shut-up to save his life."

Delmar blinked at him in an overheated kind of way.

"So they'se always gonna have something to disagree on," Pete elaborated.

"Mm." Delmar tried to unfocus his eyes and blur the shimmering pavement, but succeeded only in rolling sweat into them. "Suppose they like it that way." Pete shrugged peevishly.

"Don't make no sense to me," he muttered.

"Why, Pete."

"What?"

"You're partial to a good contradicting yourself, Pete." After a moment he added, "No shame in that."

"Not in front of the kids, I ain't."

"Mm." They sweat in silence for twelve seconds before Delmar took in a loud, troubling breath. It set Pete's teeth on edge.

"Pete!" Delmar gasped. "You don't mean to tell me you're a paterfamilias, yourself?"

"I am not! No, all I'm saying is I was him I wouldn't..." Pete rolled his eyes. "How in Hell would I have got to be a pat...paterfam–"

"Paterfamilias! I mean there's… I do believe there's only one way, Pete."

"I know that, Delmar. I mean with my being away all this time. I hain't had the chance."

Delmar shook his head sympathetically.

"Oh, that is a shame. It'd be awful nice to have the chance."

"The chance…" Pete leaned back and tried to remember the last time he'd been at even the slightest risk of parenthood. It wasn't too satisfying, whether or not you counted all that with the sirens. Delmar said something under his breath that might have had to do with toads. "It's over with now," said Pete at length. "But my." His voice bottomed out; his eyes burnt and Delmar wanted to clear his throat, and maybe leave. "My was they fine."

"I… well," he said instead. "Uh. You don't wanna be father to no siren."

"Fathering weren't hardly the object, Delmar."

The two of them could hardly move to speak. Delmar would just as soon have been sitting down, but the effort to shift seemed unthinkable. Pete was thirsty. Six hours before, they'd been, by either of their reckonings, done for, but a lot had gone on since then. Truly, it had been awful, in the original sense of the word.

Who knows where Tommy went. Home, Pete guessed. Interesting to consider, that Tommy had a home. Maybe a mother waiting for him there. Tommy seemed much too smooth to have a mother. But he was, what, twenty? Twenty-five? Of course he would. His people had kids young. Pete's mother had been plenty young enough (fifteen and eight months), but she was a Hogwallop and could hardly help but go wrong somehow. Pete's mother was dead and Delmar's mother–or maybe it was his stepmother–lived in Meridian with his sister–or maybe it was his half-sister–and said she didn't want to see him again now he'd brought criminal notoriety on their name, so they planned to stay on one of Everett's porches for now.

It was strange to be seen but not noticed. It was strange to see color in clothing, and women and children. It was strange for nothing to be happening. No time was ticking. Pete had been suspended, to some degree, between rage and tedium for nearly fourteen years. Now he was just… bored.

It was nice.

He wasn't sure how long it would stay nice for. But he had forty, maybe fifty years to figure that out, if he ate right, and a day–or even a week–sweating on the Ithaca Memorial Bandstand Common wouldn't hurt him. Delmar, Pete imagined, was never bored. Pete had known him a while, and felt like he'd always known him, and he'd never even seen him tap his foot except to music. Pete figured peace–not boredom, just a perfect state of low excitement–to Delmar, was a hayloft. Not doing anything in the hayloft, just the hayloft. An udder or two to break up the day. Pete wondered if Delmar spent time around too many udders early in life, and gotten turned off of breasts altogether. Surely something had gone wrong. Pete tried to relax his shoulders.

"Suppose it was Everett's object?" Delmar spoke up again at length. Pete considered going into some depth, but it was too hot.

"Naw," he finally said.

Delmar nodded.

"So he was a passionate lover." Pete squinted.

"What in the name a' sweet Mary Magdalene is it to you?"

"I was just thinking."

"Maybe you oughtta not. Law in Heaven." Delmar looked sheepish, but not half as much as he looked sun-stroked. He shrugged.

"I weren't trying to call no judgement on his character, now. I don't see as it matters what he got 'em by… whether 'twas passion or purpose-like, or fornicating, even, allowed he does right by 'em. I just hope he likes 'em, is all. Why, I'm sure he likes 'em just fine, now he's got 'em...I just never woulda figured it."

"Ain't our business, nohow." Pete rolled his eyes and started cracking his knuckles. He'd been knocked clear out of contentment, and would resent it until he regained stagnancy. Delmar mopped his brow on his sleeve and squinted some more. "A man's kin is his own business," Pete reiterated.

"Sure, Pete."

"What a man does with his kids is his own business."

"Sure." Delmar looked vaguely determined. "You know, I never meant to speak ill or nothing." Pete waved a hand in acknowledgement, but did not pause.

"Like I says, a man's kids is his own business. Everybody's got a different idea on how best to prove up a child. You know, schooling n' pocket money, how they dresses, which end of the belt to use. Still. Shouldn't truss up them gals like that." Pete flared his eyes like he had an itch in them. "Makes me sick."

"What for?"

"It's like the goddamn chain gang. They can't get free of one another."

"Oh, sure they can. Them big gals has just got a hand on it, anyhow, and even them little things could surely…gnaw their way lose. In a pinch."

"Don't matter. It's the symbol of it."

"Oh?"

"See, they ain't chained down or nothing. Not in iron, leastways. But Everett's old lady's got 'em trained up to stay like in line like that, just... following along any which way they's drug without… oh, without knowing where they'se headed, with no say at all about it. How'd she like it, huh? Just puts a damn bee in my britches." Pete glared and bounced a knee. Delmar gave a forbearing smile, which seemed awfully inconsiderate, but his eyes were sort of glassy, and Pete suspected he'd stopped listening.

"Mama?"

"Mm-hm?"

"How did Daddy live getting hit with that train?" Penny grinned a Mona Lisa and kept her eyes on the cutting board.

"Well, honey, it turns out Daddy wasn't hit as hard as Mama was led to believe."

"Didn't he get squashed?"

"No. Mama must've misheard the train police." Penny, who'd been taking practice swings in the meantime, finally went to work on the potato before her. It didn't last long.

"So…" Alvinelle puzzled, mouth open. "Where'd he go, then?"

"It still hit him pretty hard, baby. He was in the hospital. And he couldn't write or call, on account his jaw and both his hands got broken." Alvinelle leaned thoughtfully into Penny's skirt.

"I'm sure glad he's home now," she said. "And his jaws and hands is better."

"Of course you are, honey."

"I sure missed him."

"Of course you did, honey."

"Mr. Pete and Mr. Delmar get hit by a train, too?"

"I believe so."

"Was their hands broken?"

"Maybe. It's very rude to ask, so I ain't and I expect you won't, neither."

"Why?"

"It's rude, Alvinelle, that's why."

"But why's it rude?"

"It hurts a lot to get hit by a train." Penny sliced the last potato in her pile. "And it's sure gonna hurt if I hear you been asking folks questions about them, or your Daddy, either." Penny bent and kissed her on the forehead. "They'd like to put it behind them. You understand?"

"...Okay."

"Okay?"

"Yes, ma'am." Penny stuck the knife into the cutting board.

"Run and get mama another couple taters."