The blanket shrank into a ball, knitted itself up tightly and blackened and then returned itself to earth and air, becoming ash and vapor, no more than a gray smudge against the green. This is what Galen needed to do somehow with his life. He needed to find some burning away, some regeneration, some promise to start fresh.

He washed himself in the shower, scrubbing mercilessly at his dick. There’d be no sign left of Jennifer. And no doubt she’d had three showers by now.

Galen took his underwear to the back lawn and burned that, too. Then he walked to the shed, stood before the door with its rusty lock.

I’m thirsty, she said. It’s hot in here. You need to unlock that door and leave. I’ll give you one hour.

I burned all of it.

What’s that?

I burned the blanket. I burned my underwear. I took a shower. And you know Jennifer’s had a shower already. So there’s no evidence left.

It won’t matter. I’m the witness, and that’s what’s important. How often does a mother testify against her own son? They’ll believe me.

Why are you doing this?

Why did you become who you are?

Not like I could help that.

Well it’s the same for this now. It’s not like I have another choice.

You need to talk to me. You can’t just talk like that.

I don’t need to do anything.

This isn’t even about me.

That’s what I was saying. I knew you’d think this wasn’t about you. I knew you’d feel it was just my problem and a betrayal and unfair. But I need you to know this really is about who you are. You’re an animal, and you deserve to spend the rest of your life in prison.

Mom. Galen didn’t know what else to say. I’m not an animal.

You are an animal.

The sun so hot. He walked around the corner to the small toolshed, built off the wall of the main shed. It would be shady in there. He swung open the wooden door and was reminded of his grandfather. The tools rarely used now, but his grandfather had been in here all the time, always working on the orchard or hedge or buildings when he wasn’t at work as an engineer. His entire life had been work. And that should have made him a good man, but he beat his wife, and because of that he would never be a good man. He was an abuser. That’s what the word meant. And everyone in the family screwed up because of it. He was the one who should have been locked away. Galen had done nothing wrong. His mother was blaming him for her father. She was sending her father to prison.

I’m not your father, he said, loud enough for her to hear through the wall.

Where are you?

I’m in the toolshed. And I’m not your father.

Why are you in the toolshed?

It’s shady in here. It’s hot, and there’s nowhere to sit, but at least it’s not in the sun.

Well it’s hot in here. You have to unlock the door and leave. I’m tired of waiting. I need to get out of here, and I need something to drink.

You’re trying to send your father to prison. That’s what’s happening.

This is about you.

Galen picked up a shovel and smacked the wall. It was a big shovel, heavy, with a wide flat blade, not rounded.

What are you doing?

He smacked it again, started a rhythm.

Stop that.

I’m going to keep doing this until you admit this is all about your father and not about me.

Stop it right now.

But Galen kept hitting the wood with the shovel, a steady rhythm, getting the face to hit as flat as possible for the loudest smack. Leaning over the smaller tools to get to the wall. Pruners and hedge clippers and small garden shovels, tools accumulated over decades. The shovel heavy very quickly, his shoulders burning and his breath ragged, but he kept going.

She had stopped talking, and that was good.

Galen wished he had used a smaller shovel. He didn’t want to interrupt the rhythm, but finally he just couldn’t hold it up anymore.

Keep going, she said.

He walked out into the sun and just wandered through the orchard, bareheaded and sun-crazed, the heat moving in heavy bands around him. The furrows uneven and clodded, unturned for years now. The irrigation system still working, thin dark tracks along the rows of trunks, evaporating. He took off his shoes and squished into the mud, cooling his feet at least. The shade here still hot, sunlight everywhere through the leaves, no real shade. The walnuts a brutal tree.

In the heat and bright noon sun, the trunks seemed farther apart, the orchard expanded, just like metal.

He moaned and growled for a while and walked aimlessly through the dirt. When his feet got too hot, he stepped in mud and then roved on. Weeds and stickers, every single plant unfriendly. Most of them looked dead, but they were still standing upright, thin brown and yellow stalks of crap bush and shitty weed and fuck grass. Years of dead and dried leaves decayed, a layer of skins. And where the dirt still showed, even the brown had been bleached out of it. Dirt become more white than brown. This desolate place. Great for the grasshoppers and bees and butterflies, the grasshoppers the worst, the sound of their landings all around him. He went after a few, stomped on them as they landed, smashed them in his hands, crunchy brown bodies, oversize heads with big black eyes watching him, legs too thin to be made of anything. What he wanted was for all of them to die and just take the weeds with them, clear out the orchard, and then he wanted some rain. He wanted the dirt to be brown again, and he wanted the sun to stop.

One parent, he said. I get one parent in life, and this is it. This is what I get. He walked to the far fence, a high fence the new subdivision had put up, twice as tall as he was, made of cinder blocks painted an orange-brown to blend in. The houses the same color, the top part of their second stories protruding. The racket of their air conditioners running all day and night. Another kind of prison, living in that subdivision, but nothing like the prison he had coming.

He couldn’t even think of it. He couldn’t see himself in a prison. That was not something his brain was willing to do. That was not a picture that could make any sense. It was like standing on the moon in a T-shirt and shorts, or lounging in a chair on Mars, having tea.

Galen felt dizzy from the heat, so light-headed, he walked over and sat against a trunk. The shade a kind of punishment. A reminder of shade without being the real thing, the walnut leaves not dense enough in this sun. They had grown more thickly before, when the trees were pruned and taken care of. They had dead branches now, and produced less walnuts, and were ragged looking.

Lemonade, he said. I need some lemonade. So he got up and walked all the way across the orchard, another moon mission, and said nothing to his mother as he passed the shed. He crossed the lawn and into the house and made a big pitcher, a glass pitcher with a glass stirrer, a long clear shaft with a clear bulb on the end. It made a nice sound as he stirred, and he added lots of ice so that would clink around. He was making lemonade from a mix, and he didn’t add fresh lemons as his mother usually did, but it tasted fine.

He brought the lemonade on a tray with two glasses to the table under the fig tree.

Galen? his mother asked.

Yep.

You let me out of here right now.

Sorry, he said. I’m busy. He pulled a chair closer to the shed wall, moved the table over. The shade here from the fig tree was perfect. Huge leaves, an old enormous tree, and none of it was dying. It was in the peak of health. He poured himself a glass, then he asked her, would you like a glass too?

What?

I just poured myself a glass of lemonade. Would you like a glass too?

Yes.

Okay then. He poured her a glass. There you go, he said.

That’s cruel.

It is what it is. You’re the one hiding in the shed. Safe in your special place. If you want the lemonade, then come out and get it.