Storm clouds loomed over the Kamiah River. Southwest winds tossed rain onto the water, the pebbled shore, and Jen’s tin roof. Rain had been coming down before midnight, but it was softer then. It only became audible once Miles rose for work. Jen wondered if the storm knew she desired to sleep just for a little longer. She rolled onto her side, trying to forget the rain, and her hangover. She has a rule not to exceed three drinks, yet she couldn’t help it last night. Besides, these days it didn’t matter how much she drank, she always woke up feeling the same. But, this morning’s pain was worse than usual, amplified by last night’s silent argument.

               Miles shuffled around in the bathroom. Jen heard the high-pitch scrape and clatter of porcelain being moved. The toilet must be acting up again, seems to happen at least twice each spring. Something to do with being so close to the river and living in a county with no building or plumbing regulations. Jen tried to ignore Miles, the rain’s drumming, and the aching of her body. She clenched her eyes shut, but her temples throbbed all the more.

               Miles returned from the bathroom and began preparing for the day. He always tried to move silently in the morning, but never succeeded. He gave off a sigh. Jen could smell the aspercream he was likely rubbing on his shoulders. Given their age, both their bodies were breaking down. Jen liked to complain about her pain, while Miles suffered in silence. He settled down at the foot of the bed, to put his boots on. Jen knew he’d look her over, but that he wouldn’t wake her. He might have a few choice words for her about last night, but he’d wait until after she had a cup of coffee. She considered that one of his redeeming traits. No matter what was on his mind or how much work they had for the day, he always allowed her to wake at her own pace. She heard him grunt as he bent over to lace his boots. Once the grunting subsided, the edge of the bed rose, and boots clunked out of the room, as they faded away, Jen relaxed. All she heard was the rain coming down overhead. She could live with that. She could sleep with that. For a moment, even her body quit aching and her breathing deepened. She could never remember her dreams, but she felt that she was arriving someplace new.

               Yet, even Lita eventually had to wake, and she always had something to say. She began barking outside the bedroom window. Jen’s final moments of rest were lost to the dog, again. With her previous litters, she would have rushed out of bed to make sure they were safe. Maybe she’d even tell Miles to pull his shotgun off its mount over the bedroom doorway. But now she knew better. This dog would bark if the wind shifted directions.

               It was time to get up. Miles would want breakfast before he left for work, so would Lita. Besides, she told herself, if she stayed in bed any longer, she’d get a kink in her neck.

               After pushing herself out of bed, putting on a tattered red robe and slippers, Jen made her way towards the kitchen. Her hangover made every odor in the house more potent. Wet dog, car oil, and mildew all seemed to fight for her attention.

               Miles sat at their dining room table made from patio furniture. He tensed up once her saw her walk in the room. “Good morning,” he said. Five feet away, she could smell the burnt coffee in his mug. “Uh, you want some breakfast?” She knew he wasn’t offering. She knew it wasn’t even a question, just a statement of hunger.

               She shuffled to Miles’ side, leaned in for a kiss, felt the sandpaper of his turned cheek, and continued towards the kitchen. Stacks of dirty dishes rested in the sink; she knew better than to assume Miles would have cleaned them. Wilting fruit and vegetables sat in a wooden bowl on the black tiled countertop. The refrigerator’s white enamel coating had various stains that needed cleaning, but Jen knew more would only appear. Better to just leave them.

               “Eggs?” Jen asked. Like Miles’ question, her’s was really just a statement. She opened the refrigerator and reached for a cardboard egg tray. Specks of duck shit and feather fragments clung to the shells. Few years back, Jen began trading fresh greens for poultry and eggs with her friend, Coral, who raised waterfowl up the river a mile. Now, fresh duck eggs had become a staple of their morning diet. As she slid the tray out of the fridge, she lost her grip and the half dozen eggs fell to the floor. Brown eggshells and yellow yokes painted the linoleum flooring.

               “Shit!” Jen yelled.

               “Oh no,” Miles Replied. A Wisconsin accent that followed his journey out west lingered on the O’s.

               Hearing the commotion, Lita acted up again, barking louder and longer than before. Christy, their bible-thumping weasel faced neighbor would certainly be over within an hour to complain about the noise.

               Miles stood up from the chair, while Jen continued to stand over the mess. “I think I’ll stick with coffee,” he said.

               Never finding his jokes amusing, Jen glared at her husband.

               “Uh… I’m going to head to the shop, I’ll see you at lunch time.” Miles took his mug, grabbed his Carhart from the coat rack and opened the front door.

               “I’ll bring you an egg sandwich,” Jen replied.

               Miles froze for a moment in the doorway, seeming to contemplate turning back to her, perhaps to say everything he had been holding in overnight, but he decided against it as he walked outside and closed the door as quietly as possible.

               Even if he had stayed, Jen would be left to clean the mess on her own. Miles never cleaned, and the few times he tried, he always got it wrong. Clean dishes stacked in the wrong place, beating chair legs with the vacuum, leaving lines of dust on the counter; all common occurrences when Jen was out of town or too sick to clean. They’d been married for eleven years and that is how it has always been. Jen cooked, cleaned, handled the finances, raised their kids, and trained the dogs. While Miles focused his energy at his mechanic shop, restoring vintage cars that he often found either rusting out in some farmer’s field or wrecked and tossed down the side of a mountain decades earlier. But business was slow, even more than usual. Lately, he’s been scrounging up contracts with local farmers, repairing tractors and cleaning oversized radiators from combines. He’d be making more at the corporately owned garage the next town over, with benefits too, but he’s too proud, and stubborn, for that.

               Jen bent down to pick eggshells from the rest of the mess. She’d have to call Coral for an extra batch of eggs for the week. After throwing out the shells, she turned the stove on. Gas hissed as she lit a match and placed it against the burner. As she rested a skillet on top, blue flames licked around the steel edges. She grabbed a dustpan from the closet and scraped the splattered eggs onto it with a rubber spatula and dumped it all in the heated skillet. At least the dog would get a nice surprise.

               While waiting for the eggs to cook, Jen poured herself a cup of coffee, made her way to the living room. Finding the mud-stained couch to be unappealing, just as she felt about much of the house, she stood with a shoulder against the wall, holding the coffee close to her chest. Taking occasional sips, the tension in her temples began to ease.

               On the opposing wall hung five framed photos. Four blown up high school graduation photos; three were her daughters from a past marriage, and one was Miles’ youngest son. The fifth was a grainy photo of an ashy blonde boy sitting on a once clean couch that now rested beside Jen, stained with mud and engine grease. Grant was Miles’ eldest son, and like him, he hadn’t graduated from high school. He hadn’t even passed freshman year. Instead, he had decided to drop out and help his father in the shop. By the time Jen and her daughters arrived, he’d grown content. He spent his income, or more accurately, allowance, on god knows what, while his younger siblings passed him by and eventually went off to college. Jen never had a solid relationship with him, and he often reminded her of it, so she let him go on like that for another two years after their youngest moved to Seattle. Then she caught a skunk-like smell coming from his bedroom. When she opened the door, she found him with a burning joint in hand, eyes glazed red, and a ‘fuck you’ look smeared across his face. The next day she had him packing up his belongings and out of the house. Miles fought her on this, he needed the labor, but he’d always been soft on Grant.

               She knew she was being harsh. She herself had smoked on occasions before Miles or the kids were around, but she thought it’d be good motivation for him to clean up and start his life. Miles hardly spoke to her for the next week.

               For the longest time, her and Miles hadn’t heard from Grant. Then again, they never heard much from their other kids either. Until yesterday, when Miles got a call from him at his shop. Miles didn’t say much about it when he came home that night, he thought she wouldn’t want to hear it, he just said that Grant was “getting by and doing alright.” Even after she had a few drinks and began goading him, he still wouldn’t bring up the conversation.

               Jen noticed a faint burning smell and made her way back to the kitchen. Pouring the eggs on the dirty platter, the edges were burnt, but fortunately Lita wasn’t much of a critic.

               Before stepping out the back door, Jen looked over the storm. The rain was coming down harder than before, filling the river to the brim. The water mirrored the black storm clouds over head. Wild grass stood half drowned, bending in the passing current. The water stopped only inches from the tree line. It was almost a foot higher than last spring. The heavy rain wasn’t helping much, neither was the early snow melt. If it continued to rise, Jen might have Miles shovel up some sandbags.

               She opened the door and made her way to a metal A-frame shed, passing the chain link dog run. Lita smelled the hot food and followed her as she passed by. The aged black and grey German shorthair gave a halfhearted jump onto her hind legs trying to get a better look at the platter but gave up shortly after due to hip pain. Jen got her in a litter ten years ago, after she’d bred her two best scent hounds. Their children went off to do some good work and bring in some money for Jen when the local hunters saw how long they could track a scent. Lita had the best nose of them all, but she never used it for work so Jen was never able to sell her.

               In the shed, Jen grabbed a chewed-up plastic bowl and tossed the eggs inside along with a little kibble and returned to the dog run. Lita howled in anticipation of the meal. Opening the gate, she took wide strides to block Lita from darting out the entrance, but she didn’t have to worry too much, Lita’s focus was on the bowl in her hand. She began to jump and bark.

               “Hear you go girl,” Jen said as she tossed the bowl into the center of the kennel. Half the contents spilled out onto the ground. Lita kicked up dirt behind her as she sprinted towards the food. There used to be grass there, Jen thought. There used to be grass all over her lawn until she got the bright idea to breed and train dogs for the local hunters and trappers. Now she only had a dirt lawn, pants covered in mud, shirts reeking of dog piss and shit, more debt than income, and scars trailing up and down her arms from untrimmed claws.

               She walked to the side of the fence and looked over the river. She couldn’t see much life on the water, birds and bugs would be hiding away somewhere. All she saw was an occasional splash in the middle of the river. Salmon mistaking rain drops for landing bugs. Jen’s hair and shoulders were soaked. She used to try to keep her robe clean, but gave up after her first litter kept needing nightly attention and she lacked the motivation to put on a full set of clothes in the middle of the night. Now it was filthy, like the rest of her clothes, but who’d she have to impress anymore? She left her city for Miles long ago and with it went any attempts to maintain a clean appearance. Maybe she’d clean up if her children came to visit. Bringing their families back for a nice meal during the holidays.

               Lita, energized by a full stomach, ran up behind Jen. She jumped and pressed her front paws against Jen’s mid-back, flattening her against the fencing.

               “Damn Lita,” Jen shouted “Get back!”

               Lita mistook the command for enthusiasm. She moved to the side and jumped up again, pressing her paws against Jen’s stomach, knocking her over and barking as she hit the ground.

               “Sonofabitch!” Jen shouted. She tried to roll onto her stomach and gain her footing, but by the time she got to her hands and knees, Lita had only grown more enthusiastic and came back to play some more. Lita tried to climb on Jen’s back, but fell off once she pressed Jen back into the ground. Jen’s face slammed into the earth and she felt her forehead catch on a piece of gravel. She wanted to reach for the new wound but decided to freeze in place, believing that anymore movement would further excite Lita.

               Lita barked and paced around Jen, but grew tired and sore from the pouncing. She sniffed and scratched around Jen a few more times, then was drawn away to the other side of the kennel by the sound of a car passing along the highway.

               Jen took advantage of the distraction and climbed to her feet. She clung to the fencing as she made her way to the gate. Before Lita could race back over to her, she had unlatched the gate and made it out of the dog run.

               She limped to the porch and slid open the back door. Making her way to the living room, she left a trail of mud as she went. Sitting on the couch, knowing she’d make it filthier than it already was, she pressed a palm against her forehead. She could feel dirt digging into the wound. Pulling her hand away, she noticed as much blood clinging to her palm as she did mud and wiped it all on her robe. She placed her hand back on the wound to slow the bleed and decided to go looking for the first aid kit in the bathroom. As she stood, her eyes caught her children starring down at her. Their teen faces outdated to how they must appear now. Yet, this is all she had left of them.

               On her way to the bathroom, she passed through the bedroom and spotted Miles’ shotgun hanging over head. She didn’t want to clean her wounds. She wanted to fix the problem.

               Jen pulled the gun down and made her way back out into the rain. Lita heard her coming and began to howl. She bounced back and forth, reenergized and ready to play some more. Jen pressed the gun tight against her shoulder like Miles taught her and looked down the sights. She rested the tip of the barrel on the fence and zeroed in on her target. Rain dripped off the muzzle. Mud trickled off her robe. She believed there was as much earth on her as there was below her feet. She closed her eyes and felt she was arriving somewhere new, a place where her children, all of them, smiled down at her. Pulling the trigger, the only response was an empty metal click.

Ryan Hatten has a B.A. from Eastern Washington University, where he studied creative writing, technical communication, and journalism. Ryan has previously been employed as a firefighter, forestry technician, magazine editor, and reporter. He currently lives in Chicago, where he works as an arborist. When he is not at work or at home writing, he enjoys escaping to the woods where the ratio of trees to people leans heavily in the forest’s favor. Ryan’s previous work has been published by The Wire Harp, The Easterner, Waxing and Waning, and KTVB. Follow him on Twitter @Rthatten.