Dolores Reyes was amazed at how much shit a body could expel.  She cleaned up after her mother again, only this time she removed Pilar’s nightgown without replacing it with a fresh one.  All concerns for modesty fell away as the old woman lay nude beneath pale blue sheets and a snowdrift of blankets, wearing nothing but a Depends diaper and a simple silver cross.  The beaded chain with the tiny silver crucifix had been dropped off last week by Tessie DeLeon, her mother’s closest friend, one of a handful of women in Pilar’s prayer circle.

Everyone applauds aggressive women now, but the shy ones haven’t made quite so many gains. For instance, Carol got banished from Memphis because she argued with her father at a dinner party. Her dad endured the rest of the evening quietly, but when that last guest left he shut the door, turned to his daughter, and announced the punishment. Leave Tennessee. She’d had one moment of bravery, but right after that she returned to being meek

This has always been a factory town.  Back before it was just me and the other forty or so people who stayed this time, it was miners coming to mine the copper.  Then it was workers coming to smelt it.  Now, if tonight’s news is anything to go by, it’s going to be first responders coming to fight emergencies of their own making.