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hands out. “Who isn’t in this place?”
    â€œYou look beat.”
    â€œYou try raising two youngsters.”
    â€œPerhaps you should take the day off?”
    â€œI’m fine.”
    â€œAre you sure?”
    â€œOpen the store, Terry.”
    They’re silent for a moment.
    He walks around the cash, intending, she thinks, to join her in the cramped space behind it. She sticks out her palm. “That’s far enough.”
    Terry stops.
    â€œWe’re right in front of the window,” she says.
    He looks to it, then back at her.
    She imagines Kent’s fists. Those empty eyes.
    Terry goes to the front door and inserts the key and turns the deadbolt. Flips the sign around to Open. Turns back to face her. “You sure everything’s all right?”
    She nods.
    Another silence. Then Terry says, “You’re not just any employee, you know.”
    She doesn’t say anything.
    â€œNot to me.”
    She holds his gaze for a moment, then picks her Newfoundland Herald back up. Opens it and pretends to read. When she turns back to look, Terry’s gone.

5
    EMILY AND HEATHER ARE SITTING on overturned milk crates behind Hodder’s Grocery and Convenience. An Orange Crush with a lipstick-stained straw is pressed between Heather’s thighs. Emily’s leaning back, her face tilted towards the midday sun, wondering how Jeremy will react once he finds out his father won’t be coming with them this Friday. He’d always been closer to Kent, even as an infant. She’d spend hours trying to coax her sore nipples into his mouth while he screeched. It was only when Kent would come home and lift him into his arms that the tears would stop.
    â€œI wish there was something stronger in this,” Heather says. She takes a draw before handing the cigarette over to Emily. “Anything to get me through this shit day.”
    Emily grabs it and then takes her own puff.
    â€œHow does he even stay in business? There’s hardly been a soul in the place all week.”
    â€œBe worse after the layoffs,” Emily says, throwing the smoke to the gravel before dabbing it with the toe of her sneaker. “If people start moving away.”
    Heather sucks on her straw, then says, “Better off sinking this shit-hole town into the bay.”
    Emily imagines herself standing on some other shore, watching as the last of Lightning Cove sinks beneath the ocean: the cross atop of St. Paul’s; the dome of the parish hall where, by now, the layoffs have already been announced; the last of the jagged rock peppered along the hill behind Jeremy and Lynette’s school. She sees Kent’s face slip beneath the water too. Him along with this life she’s been living.
    â€œWe should get back, break’s over.” She goes to stand up, but Heather reaches out and grabs her wrist.
    â€œPlace won’t fall apart if we take a few more minutes.”
    She sits back, wishing she were less tentative, braver, like her younger co-worker. Might have left Kent ages ago if she were, she thinks.
    â€œTerry’s probably got his chubby hand wrapped around his stopwatch by now wondering why we’re not back at our tills.” Heather squeezes the now-empty Crush can, throwing it into the bin beside the back door.
    â€œHe’s okay.”
    â€œNever said he wasn’t, just anal is all.”
    In the silence, the young woman jams the ball of her tongue ring into the space between her front teeth.
    Emily points to her own tongue. “It hurt getting that?”
    Heather shakes her head. “The guys love it.”
    â€œHow do you mean?”
    A grin lifts one corner of Heather’s lips. “Are you serious?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYou don’t know?”
    Emily shakes her head. “Know what?”
    Heather simulates giving a blowjob.
    Emily watches for second. “Oh.”
    â€œApparently the stud feels good against the head of the