Hal dropped the heavy bags at the foot of the stairs. He would carry them up once he was done getting things squared away. His hands on the small of his back, he bent backwards, feeling his spine crackle.

“Are you going to leave those there? I can’t carry them. My blood pressure, you know!” Jane talked as she strolled by, stepping over the bags and grabbing the white plastic phone from the cradle on the wall. “Hal! There’s no dial tone! I told you to have them fix that before we drove up. Did you walk through with your boots on? You’re getting mud everywhere.”

Hal didn’t answer. He walked to the back door, fished a cigarette from the pack in his flannel shirt pocket, and lit it with his tinderbox.

“Hal? Didn’t you hear me? I said there’s no telephone. And I can’t get signal on the cell.” Jane stopped behind Hal, her hands akimbo. “If something happened, no one would find us for weeks.”

Hal closed his hand around the wooden haft of the heavy steel shovel. “I reckon,” he said as he headed back inside.