The Other Shoe by Matt Pavelich

that was that she’d lived with the Dents as long as she could. Her folks were hinting often and broadly that they felt the same. She received as a senior many pamphlets that offered ways to go about putting herself on the road to success, or suggesting programs that would allow her to seize opportunities “ NOW .” There were loans available. Her mother became very excited for a time at the hope of Karen becoming a dental hygienist; in just eighteen months she could be earning a good living and have her independence, too. Or, Jean suggested, what about becoming a certified care attendant? That was a goal that could be reached in six weeks, and the enfeebled and slightly disabled were, according to the literature, to be found in every city and town across America. A licensed CCA could work anywhere. ButKaren didn’t think she’d have the patience or compassion for those careers. She wasn’t drawn to secretarial work, didn’t think she’d like bookkeeping. She was too shy, she thought, to be in the armed services or to be a waitress. She was not lazy, or so she hoped; she simply couldn’t think of how, in very practical terms, she was to begin life apart from her family.
    In April a reporter from the River Register came to collect copies of graduation pictures. The reporter told the seniors that the graduation issue was the Register’s number one printing all year, that an extra four hundred copies would run, every one of them crammed with sheets and sheets of coupons for the meat department at IGA. The reporter provided forms on which they were to write out their full names, their parents’ names, how long they’d been in district schools, and, in twenty-five words or less, what they intended to do next. “Karen Ellen Dent,” she wrote, and “Jean Dent,” and “Galahad Dent,” and “13 yrs,” and, rather than admitting that she’d been too stupid to imagine any future at all, she wrote, “I have a job helping my friend and that is where I would like to maybe live with him.” Her picture and aspirations were published countywide the following week, and the day following that, she stood at Henry Brusett’s door with her father, who had brought the .243 to the meeting also, and not with the intention of returning it.
    â€œBrusett,” said Galahad, “what have you been up to?”
    Henry, in his long johns and a chenille bathrobe, had tried to invite them into his strange old trailer, and when that failed he stood on his metal stoop, blinking. His boots were on, unlaced.
    Galahad walked up close, face to face with Henry, the rifle loaded and armed and its sling wrapped round his forearm. Her father was in a mood. Though he was often angry and always stupid, Karen could not recall seeing him quite so beside himself as this. He’d drawn the sling so taut over his arm that his hand lay bloodless along the riflestock. His lips had bled salt. Such a fit, such an upset over his daughter’s virtue, which was at any rate intact, and which was in all events a technicality. How did Galahad think her virtue was in any way his to protect? Now she meant life or death to him? Now? Her father seemed to adore the thought that he’d been so betrayed and so wounded that he was free to wander off into a glory of self-pity where, probably, anything he might do should be excused. Karen could not imagine where his judgment might take him next; she only knew that she didn’t want to be afraid. Her father would enjoy her fear, and why would she ever want to allow him that pleasure? His throat had constricted, and when he spoke, sincerity and a spray of spittle were evident, and he wheezed like the dented tin teapot unable to contain a head of steam. “Mister,” he said, “I think you’re down to just one thing you can decently do here. You better marry this girl in the eyes of my Savior.”
    Henry made a visor of