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with ice. Before him on a plate were the leftovers of frozen waffles and fried eggs. He was a big heavy black-haired man in outsized sweatpants. His enormous stomach was exposed below his maroon tee-shirt and his huge arms dangled over the back of his chair. He was sitting back resting after breakfast. When his wife came inside he said: What’d she do? You got that look on your face.
    Well, she makes me mad. She isn’t suppose to do that.
    What’d she say?
    She said she got eighteen kids to pick up. She said she don’t have to wait for Richie and Joy Rae like that.
    I’ll tell you what I’m going to do, I’m calling the principal. She isn’t allowed to say nothing to us.
    She isn’t allowed to say nothing to me never, the woman said. I’m telling Rose Tyler on her.
     
    IN THE WARM MID-MORNING THEY LEFT THE TRAILER AND walked downtown. They crossed Boston Street and followed the sidewalk to the back of the old square redbrick courthouse and entered a door with black lettering spread across the window: HOLT COUNTY SOCIAL SERVICES .
    Inside on the right was the reception room. A wide window was set above the front counter, and hollowed into the wood under the glass was a security pocket through which people passed papers and information. Behind it two women sat at desks with files stacked on the floor beneath their chairs, with telephones and more files on the desktops. Pinned to the walls were large calendars and official bulletins issued by the state office.
    The man and woman stood at the window, waiting as a teenaged girl ahead of them wrote on cheap yellow tablet paper. They leaned forward to see what she was writing and after a moment she stopped and gave them an annoyed look and turned away so they couldn’t see what she was doing. When she was finished she bent and spoke into the gap beneath the window: You can give this note to Mrs. Stulson now.
    One of the women looked up. Are you talking to me?
    I’m finished with this.
    The woman rose slowly from her desk and came to the counter as the girl slipped the paper under the glass. Here’s your pen back, she said. She dropped it into the hollow.
    Is there any message with this?
    I put it all on that paper, the girl said.
    I’ll give it to her when she comes in. Thank you.
    As soon as the girl was gone the woman unfolded the paper and read it thoroughly.
    The couple stepped forward. We’re suppose to see Rose Tyler now, the man said. She got an appointment with us.
    The woman behind the window looked up. Mrs. Tyler is with another client at the moment.
    She was suppose to see us at ten-thirty.
    If you’d care to have a seat I’ll tell her you’re here.
    He looked at the clock on the wall beyond the glass. The appointment was ten minutes ago, he said.
    I understand that. I’ll tell her you’re waiting.
    They looked at the woman as if expecting her to say something else and she looked steadily back at them.
    Tell her Luther Wallace and Betty June Wallace is here, he said.
    I know who you are, the woman said. Take a seat, please.
    They moved away from the counter and sat down in chairs against the wall without speaking. Beside them were boxes of plastic toys and a little table with books and an open carton of crayon stubs and broken pencils. No one else was in the room. After a while Luther Wallace removed a jackknife from his pocket and began to scrape at a wart on the back of his hand, wiping the knife blade on the sole of his shoe and breathing heavily, beginning to sweat in the overheated room. Beside him Betty sat looking at the far wall. She appeared to be thinking about something that made her sad, something she could never forget in this world, as if she were imprisoned by the thought of whatever that was. She held a shiny black purse on her lap. She was a large woman not yet forty, with a pockmarked face and limp brown hair, and every minute or two she drew the hem of her loose dress modestly over her knees.
    An old man came out from a door behind