He smiles, showing a gap where his front teeth should be, but doesn’t offer me any support. He just lights a cigarette and leans against the side of the schoolhouse with his right boot propped up on the log siding behind him—the outline of his face chiseled rough like an arrowhead, his smoke twisting in the late-summer breeze. Meanwhile, Leora walks over to the cedar fence enclosing the yard and paces, her hands set into fists. That knowing grin from the guy in the hat makes me understand how desperate I look, falling all over myself, trying to reach somebody who doesn’t want me around. And I don’t blame her; she doesn’t know me from Adam. So I shamble over to the playground and sit on the wooden swing, which is even rougher than that bench inside the school. Wrapping my hands around the ropes, I prop my hurt ankle on the knee of my good leg and scope out my surroundings. The Mennonite women are coming out the correct side of the segregated doors. They have their hands so full, trying to wrangle their kids down the steps, that they don’t seem too perturbed by the exclusion from the meeting.
