I could hear it whipping in the wind outside my bedroom; his coat that was left on the laundry line to hang dry. You can't leave clothes out on a line when it's winter in New York; 'specially the mountains. The cuffs and the buttons froze when I finally had the courage to get it. A crow sat on the line right by it and cawed when I went to release the jacket from the clothespins.

I brought it into my mama, who told me he aint' never comin' back to Saranac. It's sad, you know, that he left her. Took his pickup North to Q-bec. I know that's really "Ka-bec," spelled Quebec, but mama always said it like the Q stood all by itself. I dunno how he ever got a Canadian driver's license, when all he ever did was steal Social Security numbers off the hospital patients he cleaned up after... He's off somewhere north, colder n' here, without his coat, with some other lady, huntin' n' shootin' for food. Whutever mama says...she says it with the U. Mama don't talk so good.