All My Relations Read Online Free Page A

he’d manufactured plastic tote bags for the past six months had closed. “Doesn’t matter,” Bosque said. “I’m living good.” Before leaving, he said to come on by.
    â€œYou know what Oldenburg’s doing, don’t you?” Helene said, smoothing the wrinkles from Milton’s check. She still wore her long, lavender Phoenix nails and a frothy perm. After years in Phoenix she’d relocated at the new branch, closer to her home in Black Butte. “Oldenburg wants to marry you. Then he’ll get some kind of government money for his Indian wife. Or he’ll adopt you. Same deal.”
    â€œIt’s not me who’s the wife or child. I run that place.” Nervous speaking to a woman again, Milton rambled, boasting of his authority over hired crews, what Oldenburg called his quick mind and fast hands cutting calves or constructing a corner brace, his skill with new tools. Even his baking. “He has to be the wife,” Milton said. “He’s a better cook.” Milton leaned his hip against the counter. “Older woman. He’s so old he turned white. And he lost his shape.” Milton’s hands made breasts. “Nothing left.”
    They both laughed. Elated by the success of his joke, Milton asked her to dinner. Helene said yes, pick her up at six.
    Milton was uneasy in Hashan. The dusty buildings—adobes, sandwich houses of mud and board, slump-block tract homes—seemed part of the unreal life that included his family. To kill time, he rode to the trading post in Black Butte, a few miles in the direction of Oldenburg’s ranch, and read magazines. When he arrived at the bank, Helene slapped her forehead: she hadn’t known he was on horseback. Phew, she said, she didn’t want togo out with a horse. Milton should follow her home and take a bath first.
    They never left her house. She was eager for him, and Milton realized that as a man he’d been dead for a year. They made love until early morning. Milton lay propped against the headboard, his arm encircling her, her cheek resting on his chest. She briskly stroked his hand.
    â€œYour poor finger,” she said. “I hear Lopez has little circles in his shoulder like where worms have gone into a tomato.”
    â€œIt was bad,” Milton said, closing his hand.
    â€œI can’t stand the men in this town, the drunken pigs,” Helene said. “I don’t know why I came back.”
    Helene wasn’t what Milton wanted, but he liked her well enough to visit once or twice a month. Because she lived outside Hashan, few people knew of the affair. They would eat dinner and see a movie in Casa Grande or Phoenix, and go to bed. Sometimes they simply watched TV in bed, or drove Helene’s Toyota through the desert, for miles without seeing another light.
    When Milton returned from his second weekend with Helene, Oldenburg was peevish. “You drink with that woman?” he said. “You going to send her picture to your wife?” Emergencies arose that kept Milton on the ranch weekends. After selling two wild colts to a stable, he took Helene to Phoenix overnight. Oldenburg berated him, “The cows don’t calve on Saturday and Sunday? They don’t get sick? A shed doesn’t blow down on Sunday?” Still the men baked together. At the beginning of the school year they entered a fund-raising bakeoff sponsored by the PTO. Oldenburg won first with a Boston cream pie, and Milton’s apple ring took second.
    Helene transferred to Casa Grande, and Milton brought his account with her, relieved to avoid Hashan. Conversations with his friends were strained and dead. He worked; they didn’t. They drank; he didn’t. They had families. Milton nodded when he saw them, but no longer stopped to talk.
    Fridays after Helene punched out, they might browse in the Casa Grande shopping center. Milton was drawn to the camera displays, neat lumps of