“Honey, you’ve got to divorce her. She’s a drunk driver, for Christ’s sake. One of these days she’s going to kill somebody,” Lena said to Keith. “The courts won’t care that you’ve been separated for 15 years; you’ll be as financially responsible as she is.”

“I know, I know, but I can’t leave her with nothing. If I divorce Karen, we’ll be forced to sell this house and she’ll have nowhere to live. She doesn’t work, she has no money, and on top of that she’s never sober. I don’t love her anymore, but I won’t ruin her,” Keith said. They were seated in his kitchen. Keith sat at the head of the small, wooden table, and Lena sat diagonally across from him. Divorce papers spilled across the kitchen table; Keith’s world, all the unhappy memories, were condensed into that one document. The final page sat on top, signed. All that was left to do was post them. “I can’t do it, Lena. I – I’m sorry –,” Keith said.

“Yes, you can,” Lena said as she leaned across the table and laid her hand on top of his. “What has she ever done for you? Is there anything wrong with wanting to leave a woman that abandoned you and the kids for another man? It’s time to pull the Band-Aid off and finalize this divorce.” She kissed him lightly on the forehead. All the love she felt for him poured out and he realized that all he needed was right in front of him. He had to do this, if not for himself then for Lena.

“How can I help?” Lena said. “I want this divorce finalized, and soon. Karen could show up here any moment. How do you think she would react to seeing me in her home?” Keith shuddered at the thought. He first met Lena several years ago and had refused her advances. As time passed and Karen came by the house less and less, Keith reconnected with Lena and they talked for hours. Now, Lena drove to see him in his empty nest several nights a week. She owned a home in Clinton, NH that she shared with her daughter and young grandkids. They often visited Lena’s large, Filipino family together, but the visits became less frequent as Keith grew reluctant. His chest ached when Lena’s grandkids grew taller and leaner between each visit. Lately, Keith noticed Lena studying photos of her family on her cellphone and he worried he might lose her.

“There’s nothing you can do right now. The house is falling apart and we can’t put it on the market. The living room floor sags into the basement and there’s no secondary heating system. I’d have to spend a hundred grand before we could sell it. I want her to have it, so she has somewhere to go if Ed kicks her out. The kids tell me Karen’s wearing on him, and I can’t blame the guy; she sits around his house all day, drinking, and then yells at him when he comes home. I see him driving up and down the roads on sunny winter days in his plow truck; the bastard doesn’t want to go home!” he said, and thought back to the years he endured Karen’s abuse. Karen resented the family for never figuring out how to cope with her anxiety. Instead of seeking professional help, she drank herself oblivious each night. Karen never remembered how she mistreated Keith and the kids once she blacked out. When her constant need for consolation became too much, the kids left for good.

“If I give Karen the house, I could walk away and start over with you. I want to split the mortgage fifty-fifty, but she’s broke. With no money to pay off the mortgage, she’d lose the house.”

“You’re saying you can’t sell this place without throwing a fortune into it, and you can’t get a divorce because Karen can’t afford to take over the mortgage payments on the house? We’ve got to do something. The options are awful, but you can’t live your life like this.” And then more quietly, “I can’t live my life like this either. She chose to leave, but I’m here.” Lena’s eyes dropped to the table, avoiding Brian’s gaze. “Honey, it’s late and this problem will be here tomorrow. Let’s go to bed,” she said as she took him by the arm and guided him up the stairs.

Several days passed as usual before Keith woke on the couch one night, his bare arms covered in gooseflesh. He cursed himself for falling asleep on the couch again. The dog whimpered at him from across the room through the gate that penned him in the kitchen. Keith stumbled to his feet and unlatched the gate. The dog followed him to the front door and slipped out into the darkness. A shiver quaked Keith’s body and he thought that it was nearly as cold in the house as it was outside. He moved down the hall toward the living room to check the wood stove.

As Keith suspected, the fire was out. He wadded pages from an old issue of the Valley Times and felt around against the wall for the lighter kept near the tower of dried, split logs. Deep lines crossed his face as he squinted and ran his thumb across the spark wheel. A flame jumped to life and danced across the pale, rose-colored walls. Keith kissed the flame to a crumpled page, then another, and another, and tossed them into the stove. He stared past the soapstone and through the flames, seeing Lena, his kids, and his wife.

“Fuck,” Keith said and cleared his throat, still groggy from sleep. He dropped the small scrap that he’d held in his now-singed fingertips. Each brick below fitted together like the pieces of a puzzle. Gaps remained here and there where the ashen carpet showed through. The paper hit the hearth and tinder-sized splinters of wood smoked as the fire caught.

“Christ,” he hissed as he stood and stamped the fire out with the rubber sole of his work boot. “That’s the last thing that I need.” His breath caught in his throat and his heart raced. “A fire –,” he thought. “Christ, the insurance. I have insurance on this fucking house. What good is it if we never use it?”

Keith shuffled down the dark hallway toward the kitchen but stopped when he heard the dog at the door. He reached the door and opened it. The dog loped into the kitchen and spun, waiting for a treat. Keith stepped over the dog and reached for the small step stool. He dropped it in front of the refrigerator and fumbled for footing on the small platform. In one of cabinets above the fridge, he found the folder he was looking for. Keith stood hunched over the unfinished countertop as he examined the house insurance policy. The dwelling and personal property coverage insured the only possessions that he cared about.

“If the house burns, Karen and I could split the money, he thought. Then we could move on.” Keith knew there was no way in hell they would rebuild, but if she fought him on it, he could build something modest in the spring. He rearranged the papers and thrust them back into the cupboard. The dog started pacing the length of its bed. Keith watched it nose at the small dog-blanket and remembered that the fire was still out.

Kneeling in front of the woodstove, the cold realization of what he considered struck him in the gut. Keith glanced out the window and memories flooded his vision, the swing set that Karen insisted they build for the kids the first weekend after they moved into the house, wild fourth of July parties they hosted for rowdy friends, and summer nights when Keith wrestled with the kids in the soft, ankle-deep grass. Keith and Karen both wanted more for their kids than they had had in their own childhoods.

Keith built a small fire in the woodstove and sat on the hearth while he waited for it to catch. He pondered the reality of the idea. “The insurance company would have to buy it. I could start a fire now, but the police would question why I didn’t notice it in time to call for help. If I screw this up, they’ll send me to jail. Lena and the kids are all I’ve got and I’d rather die than let them see me hauled off to prison.” Keith licked his lips, running his tongue over the cracked and peeling skin. He got up to get himself a glass of water. Returning to the fire, he drained the glass. “What if I accidentally started a fire before I left for work? It would guarantee that I wasn’t at the scene. I empty the coals from the wood stove every few days. What if one coal didn’t make it into the bucket? What if it rolled away and I ignored it, thinking it long dead? Could that work?”

A long silence was broken by the dog’s muffled fart. Keith eyed the dog through the gate. He was soft on the mutt, who once chased a black bear off the porch of their house. But that was years ago. The dog’s small face was now ringed with a halo of silver. “Maybe he’d make it out, stay under the smoke long enough for someone to get here –. No, I’m not kidding myself. The dog’s nose practically drags across the ground and his bed backs right up to the stove through the gate. He’s a goner.” Keith pushed the thought from his mind.

“I’m doing this,” he said. He rose and walked toward the stairs. As he climbed, he said a farewell to the memories that lived in the old house. “Tomorrow,” he whispered to himself, “I’ll make this right.”

Mother’s thick voice echoed down the narrow hallway of our two bedroom apartment. I could hear her wrestle with the twin mattress, the plastic crinkle of sheets. She balled the bedding into a cracked plastic hamper and lugged the burden down the hall. The back door thwacked the house and I cringed. Mother left the soiled hamper on the back porch and I hid my mortification that a passing stranger might see it.

Curled around my cereal bowl, I pushed spoonful after spoonful into my mouth. Moving on the balls of my tennis shoes, I tip-toed passed our broken TV through the front door and down the two good stairs to the street. The sun was just coming up and I was the only kid on the street. I walked purposefully, head down, checking over my shoulder every few minutes. No sign of the bus.

Several weeks ago, I’d stepped up onto the bus like any other day, passed a few kids, most tired, many jazzed up on sugary cereal. Halfway down the aisle, a big girl stood up. I didn’t recognize her and tried to squeeze around her.

“Where you think you’re going?” she said. I didn’t like the way she eyed, face scrunched up tight. She frowned and then her largemouth exploded.

“What’s wrong with your face, kid?”

“What do you mean?”

“I said, what’s wrong with your face? Did your parents chain you to the back of their car and drag you down the street?”

I froze, too horrified to wipe away the spittle that now flecked my cheeks. Everyone was staring and I felt the tears well up before I could stammer a response. The bully took a step closer to me and I fell backwards. She laughed, and her shoulders quaked as she turned and forced her way back into her seat.

I scrambled backwards on hands and pulled my way up into an empty seat.

I don’t remember the rest of the ride to school. Too scared to move, too scared to face the jeers and taunts at school, I refused to get off of the bus.

Eventually, the principal called my mother at work and she came to get me. I avoided her gaze but didn’t need to see her to feel the dangerous levels of energy she was giving off. Her hands remained firmly in fists as she led me to her hobbled car. Expecting a slap, I scrunched my face up, but mother merely started the car and drove us home.

The bed wetting started that night. Mother never said a word to me about the incident. We developed a routine. She washed my sheets each day, and I scoured the parts of me that the soap couldn’t touch.