Smoke Bitten

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For Clyde, who played games with passion but never took them too seriously.

For Jean, who has a beautiful heart and kind spirit—and a gift for fun.

For Ginny, who can herd cats and make them like it.

My wonderful siblings, who taught me to love stories. Thank you.

“Are you okay, Mercy?” Tad asked me as he disconnected the wiring harness from the headlight of the 2000 Jetta we were working on.

We were replacing a radiator. To do that, we had to take the whole front clip off. It was a rush case on a couple of fronts. The owner had been driving from Portland to Missoula, Montana, when her car blew the radiator. We needed to get her back on the road so she could make her job interview tomorrow at eight a.m.

The task was made more urgent by the fact that the owner and her three children under five were occupying the office. She had, she told me, family in Missoula who could watch her children, but nobody but her alcoholic ex-husband to watch them in Portland, so she’d brought them with her. I wished she had family here to watch them. I liked kids, but tired kids cooped up in my office space were another matter.

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