But if you show good on your upcoming matches, we can probably risk putting you in with Joe Frazier. After that it’s history, sonny. Jude hardly heard. He boxed but didn’t follow boxing. Carney said it would be the money he needed to retire. He’d become thin in recent months, the bones of his face prominent, his eyes yellowish. But Jude could think only of Louise’s belly, a line down it like that on a peach. The girl was gone. She was bright and strong and beyond his grasp. One evening they walked the familiar lane between grown-up ditches and fields, a few pecans along the way, the shells of previous years in the gravel. I know you’re not happy, Jude, she said. I can feel it. You don’t hardly speak and I don’t expect you to, but … I am just trying to understand this. Is it because I’m pregnant—que je suis enceinte? Or is it me? He watched his shoes scuff in the dirt. Peut-être j’étais … I don’t know … just lonely, she said. J’ai pensé … I thought I knew.
