It rained the day before so burying the cat wasn’t as hard as she thought it would be. She found a shovel in the shed, and wrapped her pet in an old towel and a grocery bag and put it in the hole like that, not wanting to see the life gone from his eyes. She shoveled the dirt back, then walked in the woods that bordered their two acres until she found a sufficient rock to keep animals from digging him up.

She had met the truck for the delivery of the beds and mattresses the day before and spent that first night alone. There were unfamiliar rustling sounds, the last of the rain pinging on the tin roof, and far away a coyote singing solo, then its chorus joining. There were as yet no curtains and the moon tried hard to ride the cool breeze in through the open window but got caught in the thick, rusty screen.

Her father came in the afternoon that second day, pulling an open trailer behind his jeep with the rest of her things. Together they carried in the couch and dresser and dining table. When they set the dresser down, he stood a minute squinting at the queen bed as if unsure what it was. On his way out again, he paused in the doorway of the other bedroom and likewise stared at the twin beds, mattresses still plastic encased.

The rest of the stuff she could carry herself: the four dining chairs, the coffee table. Her father sat on the porch in a folding chair drinking a Coke and eating the sandwich she’d made for him and watched her. Quiet here, he said. You won’t be bothered. Hardly a car seems to come down this road. Seems the cat found one of the only ones. Anyway, you’ll get a lot of thinking done. He sometimes said things in this coded manner. He was saying he thought she had some things to consider.

He was gone by the time Ben came straight from his first shift at the restaurant—the only decent place around. Days now, hoping for nights soon, and before long a place of his own, maybe bistro-like with a black and white checked floor and duck breasts with sour cherry sauce. She had taken a week off before she had to present herself at the new bank branch, though how much loan business there was around there so far from the city was hard to guess.

He brought some groceries and they worked together to make dinner—a simple pasta and a salad. It was their first meal in a place that was both of theirs. She found the wine in the crate with the oils and vinegars and they drank a bottle. The house had a fireplace, and while she cleaned up, Ben scrounged around outside for wood. He came back with split logs. “Found a stash,” he said. “Out by the shed.”

“Our lucky day.” And it was, more or less. They wanted custody of his kids, five and seven, but lost that battle. His wife managed to blame it all on him, on them, though all they’d done was fall in love. Instead, they would have them every other weekend, a week in the summer. That was all.

They put the couch directly facing the fire, probably too close, and lay there, twined together staring into it. They made love quietly in a workaday, sweet manner. Perhaps that was how it would be.

She got up to take a shower, and Ben went out to get his suitcases. They could unload the rest in the morning, and by this time tomorrow, she would have things mostly put away. He had not been allowed much. There were a lot of things they would need, shelves, for instance, for his record collection, a toy box, bikes.

She took a long time applying her lotion, treating her face. The mirror had fogged up but there wasn’t anything there she wanted to see. When she came out of the bathroom in her pajamas still toweling her hair, Ben had the suitcases open on the floor and was kneeling before one, his hands gripping its edge, hanging his head.

Dawn Abeita’s work has appeared in a number of literary journals, including Chicago Quarterly Review, American Fiction, Potomac Journal, Fiction Weekly, and Gulfstream Magazine. She earned her MFA from the Warren Wilson College Program for Writers. She is a snow-avoidant Florida girl who now lives and writes in Atlanta, Ga.