The Mighty Red

by Louise Erdrich

There are things you never see until you’re paying all the bills, thought Crystal. A small leak she had once detected in an increased water bill, but didn’t follow up on, became a thousand-dollar drain over a couple years and then digging up the lawn to get at the source took up almost all of her savings. Hard to forget.

She was sometimes too tired to have emotions and had started acting rationally. She knew how men hated rational women. Crystal stopped showed her feelings in an argument. She was done with second chances, done with the opulent mercy of women. Unaffordable mercy. For years, no matter how hard she’d saved, she’d been overspending. She forged onward and it finally ended with Martin saying, ‘I’m outta here.’

The rough-cut men were preparing to eradicate one of the most nutritious plants on earth in favor of growing the sugar beet, perhaps the least nutritious plant on earth. Evolution thought this was hilarious.

‘Suicide always leaves someone else holding your pain,’ said Ichor.

The cult had rejected him for being a Catholic because they didn’t accept people who already belonged to a cult.