The Visiting Hour

he came in his seedy brown jacket smelling of paint.   all thumbs, a man stumbling over his own muscles, unable to hold some part of himself and rock it, gently.   she gave up, seeing him come in the door, wanting to show him her flat belly just an hour before, looking at her own corpse in the mirror.   she lay there reduced, neither virgin nor mother. it had been decided.   the winter was too cold in the garage. they would live with her mother.   the old bedroom was already prepared, cleaned, the door opened.   the solitary twin bed remained; he would sleep on the porch. she looked at him and tried to feel her way into the body of a woman, a thing which has to be taken care of, held safely in his arms. she lay there, trying to hold on to what she had, knowing she had to let it go.