The fifth day, Marge McCullough sat at the kitchen table and watched the refrigerator hum. It was an old Frigidaire, the kind that made a sound like a dying animal if you stood too close, but it still worked, which was more than she could say for the mine, or the church, or the pharmacy down Route 119.

Becky stood in the doorway. She held the Walmart gift card in her hand. It was a plain white card, the kind you got with a twenty-dollar balance and a barcode that meant nothing to anyone outside the store. She had held it for five days now, turning it over and over, looking at the PIN code on the back, the numbers Dale had written in his particular handwriting—the sevens with the little underline, the fours that looked like chairs.

Marge didn't look up. She was eating cereal from a chipped bowl, the kind with the blue stripe around the rim that had been chipped in a dozen places. She ate slowly, methodically, spoon to mouth, chew, swallow. Spoon to mouth, chew, swallow. The radio on the counter was playing static between stations.

The doorbell rang. Marge didn't stop eating. Becky didn't move.

The bell rang again, longer this time. Becky went to the door and opened it. Sheriff Brooks stood on the porch with a man behind him. The man was the right height. The right build. Dark hair, receding a little at the temples, just like Dale's. He wore Dale's jacket—the brown leather one with the tear in the left sleeve that Dale had gotten on a barbed wire fence near the old quarry.

"Hey," the man said. His voice was wrong. Dale's voice had been deeper, rougher, like gravel in a tin can. This voice was higher, thinner, like wind through a crack in the window.

"Come in," Becky said. She didn't invite the sheriff inside. She never did.

The man sat in Dale's chair—the one with the cushion that had worn bald in the middle. He put his hands on his knees. He looked at the table, at Marge, at the cereal bowl, at the radio, at anything except Becky's face.

Marge looked up from her bowl. She looked at the man's face, his nose, his chin, the way his jaw set when he was uncomfortable. Dale set his jaw the same way. Always had.

Then Marge reached out and took the gift card from Becky's hand.

Becky felt her stomach drop. She hadn't given Marge the card yet. She hadn't decided what to do. But Marge took it anyway, the way she took everything—without asking, without explanation, because that's what you did in this house. You took what was there.

Marge held the card between her thumb and forefinger. She looked at the front, the Walmart logo, the barcode. She turned it over. She looked at the back, at the PIN code, at the numbers Dale had written.

She held it closer to her face. Her eyes were bad—cataracts starting, the doctor said, but nothing they could do about it out here. She squinted. She tilted her head. She traced the numbers with her thumb, feeling for the grooves, the way Dale had pressed hard when he wrote them, the pen digging into the plastic.

She stopped.

Her thumb hovered over the sevens. The two sevens, both with their little underlines. She pressed them once, twice, feeling the grooves. Then she stopped.

She looked at the man. She looked at the card. She looked back at the man.

"Wrong pen," she said. Her voice was flat, without inflection, the way she said things like the weather was bad or the truck needed fixing.

The man in Dale's chair shifted. He didn't say anything. He didn't know what to say.

Sheriff Brooks, still standing in the doorway, cleared his throat. "Marge, maybe—"

"No," Marge said. She held up the card. "Look at the sevens. Dale underlines his sevens. This man doesn't." She looked at the man. "Do you?"

The man shook his head.

"Then you're not Dale," Marge said. She handed the card back to Becky. "Send him away."

Becky opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. "Mom, he's not going to—"

"I said send him away."

The man stood up. He looked at Becky one more time, his eyes wide and confused, and then he walked out the door. Sheriff Brooks followed, closing the door behind him. The truck engine started and drove away, kicking up dust on the gravel driveway.

Becky stood in the kitchen for a long time. The cereal bowl sat on the table, empty except for a few soggy flakes at the bottom. The radio crackled between stations.

Then Becky went to the bedroom. She took off her jacket. She reached into the inside pocket and pulled out the gift card. Dale had put it there the morning he left. "For the baby," he'd said. "Diapers. Formula. Whatever you need."

She had wanted to give it to Marge right away. But she hadn't known how. How do you give your dying mother-in-law a Walmart gift card and say this is why your son is dead? How do you say it like that, without saying it?

Now she walked back into the kitchen and set the card on the table.

Marge looked at it. She didn't pick it up. She just looked at it.

"He wanted you to have it," Becky said. Her voice was flat too, without inflection, the way you speak when you've run out of everything else.

Marge nodded. She reached out and picked up the card. She looked at the PIN code one more time. She traced the sevens with her thumb. Then she put the card in her pocket.

"Alright," she said. "Alright."

She stood up, walked to the fridge, and took out a carton of eggs. "We're making eggs," she said. "And toast."

Becky nodded. She cracked the eggs into a pan. The oil sizzled. The smell filled the kitchen—simple, familiar, nothing more and nothing less. They ate at the table. Marge had two eggs. Becky had three. They didn't talk.

Afterward, Becky washed the dishes. Marge sat at the table and watched the news. The television showed a story about another mine collapse, three states over, twelve men trapped, rescue efforts underway. The reporter's voice was steady and professional, the way it always was when talking about other people's deaths.

Becky turned off the faucet. She dried her hands on a towel that had seen better days.

"We'll be alright," she said.

Marge didn't answer. She reached into her pocket and took out the gift card. She opened the drawer—the one under the radio, the one where she kept the bills and the prescriptions and the things that mattered—and she put the card inside. Then she closed the drawer.

The radio crackled. The refrigerator hummed. Outside, the West Virginia sky was grey the way it always was, the colour of old dishwater and forgotten things.

OTMES v2: DR-2008-APP-M3-4ACT-1250W-NO-SUP-PER-1PL-LIM