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Hollis’s pa was in construction. A lot of men were.

Hollis had his eyes and his dishwater dusty brown hair. He was the source of all of Hollis’s blunt edges: heavy brows, stubby fingers, knobby knees, overbite, nervousness.

Mr. Brown left them on Monday mornings for the city and came back home on Fridays. He didn’t like to talk about where he slept when he was away, but the money was good enough to bear it.

He was a quiet man.

When he was home, he eyed Hollis with disappointment. He didn’t say a word of criticism, but Hollis could just feel him wishing for more. You don’t work as hard as Mr. Brown did and not look at your son and wish he could be better. That your sacrifices were going somewhere meaningful.

The promise of upward mobility.

Sports were a ticket out, and Hollis wasn’t good at any of them. He had average grades no matter how much he studied. He wasn’t good at painting, photography, history, or anything else, really.

He baked, but it wasn’t a hobby. Most people around town made a lot of their own stuff. Bread, jams, pickles, preserves of all kinds. Powdered eggs, canned chicken, penny-pinching, crust-saving. Real rural shit.

The only reason Yulia thought his bread had any value was because she was too rich to have learned how to make her own.

Hollis glanced up at the group of kids in the middle of the classroom, snickering and whispering. Their history teacher always ignored them and kept going. Everyone knew senior year was a waste of time for some people, so why yell at them to pay attention?

Everyone who was going to college already had been admitted. As for the rest, factories and construction sites were full of guys like them.

Guys like him.