The phone rang at 9:14 on a Monday. Billy Ray Collins was in the kitchen, eating cereal out of a bowl that had a chip in the rim. He let it ring twice before picking it up.

"Hello?"

" Billy? It's Ray."

"Hi, Dad."

"Your car still run?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"I want to come see you. You got room?"

Billy looked at the apartment. Two rooms and a kitchen. Sue was in the shower. The sofa in the living room had a spring that poked through the fabric if you sat on the wrong side. There was room. There was always room, even when there was not.

"Yeah," Billy said. "Come on over."

"When?"

"Whenever."

"Tuesday?"

"Sure."

They hung up. Billy finished his cereal. He washed the bowl. He put on his coat and went to work.

Billy worked at a small insurance company in Charleston, West Virginia. He was a claims adjuster, which meant he spent his days looking at car accidents and deciding who was at fault and how much money the company should pay. It was not glamorous work. It was honest work, in the way that most work is honest—meaning nobody lies about what it is, which is more than you can say for most jobs.

He was thirty-four years old and he had been doing this job for six years. Before that, he had done other jobs—working in the coal mine with his father, driving a truck for a local contractor, standing at a gas station on Route 119 where the town used to be and now was just a crack in the asphalt and a memory.

Sue worked at a Walmart in Charleston. She had been working there for eight years. They had been together for eight years. They had not married because neither of them saw the point, and also because marriage in their experience had been something that people did when they were young and then regretted when they were old. Billy's parents had been married for thirty-six years. His father's side of the mouth was always turned slightly away from his mother, as though he were listening to something on the other side of the room that he preferred.

Sue and Billy were better than that. They were not worse. They were just... not. They existed in the same space, like two pieces of furniture in a room that had been placed there by someone else and never moved.

Ray arrived on Tuesday. He came by bus, which meant a three-hour ride from the town in Appalachia where he had lived for sixty-eight years. He got off the bus at the Charleston station with a canvas bag over his shoulder and a face that had been shaped by sixty-eight years of breathing coal dust.

Billy picked him up. The Ford was old—a 1998 model with 180,000 miles on it and a radio that only picked up one station, a country music station that played the same five songs on rotation. Ray sat in the passenger seat and looked out the window at the landscape passing by.

"Your place is small," Ray said.

"It's mine," Billy said.

"That's the same thing."

Billy drove. Ray looked out the window. The radio played a song about a woman and a truck and a road that went on forever. Neither of them commented on it.

They arrived at the apartment. Sue was not home. Ray walked in, set his bag down, and looked around.

"Nice place," he said.

"Thanks."

"Where do I sleep?"

"In the living room. On the sofa."

"Is the sofa comfortable?"

"It's fine."

"Fine is good enough."

Ray dropped his bag on the sofa and sat down. The spring poked through. He did not seem to notice.

Billy went to work. Ray stayed in the apartment. At 10:00, he made coffee. He used Billy's coffee maker, which was a drip machine that had been stained on the inside by years of use. The coffee was strong and bitter and exactly the way Ray liked it. He sat at the kitchen table and drank it and watched the sunlight move across the floor.

At 12:30, Billy came home for lunch. They ate sandwiches at the kitchen table. Ray asked Billy about work. Billy said it was fine. Ray asked Billy about Sue. Billy said she was at work. Ray said nothing else.

At 1:00, Billy went back to work. Ray went back to watching the sunlight.

Sue came home at 5:00. She walked in with a Walmart bag full of groceries and a face that had been shaped by eight years of standing in front of cash registers. She saw Ray sitting at the kitchen table and stopped in the doorway.

"Who's this?" she asked.

"My dad," Billy said.

Ray stood up. He was six feet tall, though he had been shrinking for the past five years. His emphysema made it hard for him to breathe sometimes, but he did not complain. He never complained.

"Nice to meet you, Sue," he said.

"Nice to meet you too, Ray."

They shook hands. Ray's hand was rough and warm. Sue's hand was smooth and cool. They let go.

Dinner was spaghetti. Sue made it. Ray said it was good. Billy said it was good. Sue said nothing, which was her way of saying it was good enough.

After dinner, Ray turned on the television. He sat in the armchair and watched a baseball game. Billy sat on the sofa and read a newspaper. Sue went to the bathroom and brushed her teeth.

At 10:00, Ray said he was going to bed. He slept on the sofa. Billy slept in the bedroom. Sue slept in the bedroom. The sofa spring poked through the fabric and into Ray's back. He did not seem to notice.

The next day was Wednesday. Billy went to work. Ray stayed in the apartment. He made coffee. He watched television. He sat by the window and looked out at the street below. A woman was walking a dog. A man was mowing a lawn. A car drove by slowly, the driver looking for something he could not name.

At noon, Billy came home. Ray was sitting at the kitchen table.

"Your place is quiet," Ray said.

"Yeah."

"Your mother used to say quiet was the same thing as lonely."

Billy sat down. "Did she?"

"Yeah. She said a house that is quiet is a house that is waiting for something to happen."

"Did she say what it was waiting for?"

Ray shook his head. "She said she did not know. She said maybe it was waiting for someone to come home."

Billy looked at his father. Ray was looking at the table. His hands were on the table, palms down, fingers spread. They were the same hands that had shoveled coal for forty years. The fingernails were permanently stained. The knuckles were swollen.

On Thursday morning, Ray said he was going home.

Billy said, "I'll drive you."

Ray said, "No."

Billy said, "Are you sure?"

Ray said, "Yeah."

Billy drove him to the bus station. The ride took forty minutes. They did not talk. The radio played a song about a woman and a truck and a road that went on forever. Billy turned it off.

At the station, Ray got out of the car. He stood outside the window and looked at Billy.

"Your car still run?" Ray asked.

"Yeah."

"Good."

Ray nodded. He turned and walked toward the station entrance. Billy watched him go. Ray did not look back.

Billy sat in the car. The engine was running. The station doors closed behind Ray. He was inside now, past the glass, past the crowd, past everything that could be seen.

Billy started the car and drove home.

The apartment was quiet. Sue was not home. The sofa had a dent where Ray had slept. Billy sat down on it. The spring poked through the fabric and into his back. He did not move.

He picked up his phone. He looked at Ray's number in his contacts. He did not call. He put the phone down.

He opened the refrigerator. He took out a beer. He opened it. He drank it standing up, in the kitchen, looking at the wall.

The television was on in the living room. It was playing a game show. The host was asking questions. The contestants were laughing. The audience was laughing. Billy did not laugh.

He finished the beer. He put the bottle in the sink. He went to the living room and sat on the sofa. The dent was still there. He sat in it. The spring poked through. He did not move.

The television kept playing. The host kept asking questions. The contestants kept laughing. The audience kept laughing.

Billy sat on the sofa and listened to the silence.

OTMES v2 Code: DR-2026-CHS-Lost-4ACT-1100W-NO-SUP-PER-1PL-LIM