Free Rise by L. Annette Binder

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    He tried the wife next, but she just held her arms across her chest. I’m sorry, Mr. Muller , was what she said. He’ll park it where he wants it . The wind blew her thin blond hair back from her face, and she looked old as a grandma though she couldn’t be more than thirty. She went inside when he started again. She pulled down the shades on every window that faced his house, and he knew it wasn’t any use. That’s when he went to the lumberyard and bought himself some posts.
    He waited until Travis was at his shift, and then he dug the holes. He’d build the fence right through the boat if he could. He’d split that boat down the middle. But he did the next best thing. He set the first post right behind the trailer and the last one where his backyard fence began. That way everybody could see how the Fishers had crossed onto his land. He stretched a line between the posts and marked where the middle ones would be. It was hard to drive the hole digger into that winter dirt. It wouldn’t get soft again until May. He struggled and cursed, and Helen brought him coffee when he called. She came out and shook her head. “You’re making trouble again,” she said. “Building a halfway fence. People will think we ran out of money.” He waved her down and kept working, and his ribs were sore from opening the digger and pulling it back out.
    The second night he put the middle posts in, burying them almost halfway into the ground. He packed them down with dirt instead of concrete and tamped them hard to keep them stable. He capped them when he was done so the rain wouldn’t rot them. This fence needed tolast. He used mortise joints to set the rails. Helen came out near the end and helped him nail the pickets. “I’ve been meaning to put up a fence,” he told her. “It’s been on my list for years.”
    She shook her head at that. “You’ve never talked about another fence before. You know it well as I do.” She brushed down his jacket when he was done. She washed off his work shoes, and for once she didn’t smile while she worked. Her face was puckered up tight.
    Travis didn’t come home until eight the next morning. Frank stood with his coffee cup at the living room window and watched him park his truck, in the driveway this time and not across the lawn. Travis didn’t go straight inside. He went to his boat instead and looked at the finished fence. He tossed his cigarette butt down and ground it with his heel, and he reached inside his pocket for another. He looked at their window as if he could see through the curtains and into their house. As if he knew Frank was there watching him. Helen nudged him. He hadn’t noticed her when she came and stood beside him. “Now you’ve gone and done it,” she said. “I can see it in his face.”
    He couldn’t sleep that night. He lay there instead and listened to her breathe. She was ninety pounds at most, but there was nothing frail about her. He turned his pillow around so it was cool against his skin. All her talk about Travis had gotten his heart racing. He could feel it sometimes. It fluttered like a bird against his ribs, and one day it would betray him. She’d be a widow then. She’d have to take care of the house herself.
    He rolled to his side and pushed himself up. The bed springs creaked, but she didn’t stir, not even when he knocked against the nightstand on his way to the window. Her breathing was deep and steady, just a little quieter than a snore. He sat down in the reading chair where she liked to do her crosswords. It was the best spot in the house, that’s what she always said. She could see the pots of lavender from there and her sweet peas and climbing roses.
    He stretched his legs out. A miller was flying in the room. It hovered in the amber glow of the nightlight. He tried to catch it. They made a mess, those moths. They