Their daughter, Frankie, kept them anchored in odd ways. She was bright-eyed with teeth gaps and the tiny stubbornness of children. She would pull them into absurd alliances—against bedtime, against broccoli. On good nights, they would watch Frankie sleep and remember why they'd climbed into the wreckage of early adulthood together. But the small mercies were uneven. Dean started staying later at garages that smelled of oil and old vinyl; Cindy started arriving home to find his truck gone and his side of the bed cold.
December 24, 2010