“You were young.” Willie rolled nails in his palm, his grimace on the horizon. “But Becker beat him blue. Ezra came home once, skin blotched and bruised, like he’d tangled with a mule. It wasn’t good.”
Above, thunder cracked. The clouds plumes of charcoal and navy, as if they swallowed up the sky. Willie crouched, straightened a plank of unstained wood. I pinched my nail, hammered. Ezra had spent a couple of seasons helping Becker during harvest, but I couldn’t remember much of that time.
“I suppose,” Willie said into the silence as we worked, “darkness just festered inside him.”
I thought of the anger knotted in Ezra, his fury at the world, his rabid, fanatical spirituality. I’d never viewed him as the one wounded, as he’d bullied those smaller than him, but I supposed pain was a cycle that never stopped turning.
“I don’t understand,” I said. Pa would never have tolerated a farmer abusing Ezra. “What’d Pa do? Why was Becker left standing?”
Willie’s eyes pinched at the corners. He straightened his straw hat by the brim, sunlight a harsh slash across his jaw. “We didn’t tell Pa.”
Faroff a horse sneezed. Sound caught up and lost itself in the boundless space. There was much I hadn’t glimpsed, of those who’d lived alongside me. “Thank you for telling me.” I scratched my neck. “But it won’t be me, watching for him to change.” I placed my boot ona low rung, rocked my heel back and forth. I could let him go, allow forgiveness—but I still wouldn’t welcome him in my life. “It’s not for me to help him feel healed. He can do that elsewhere.”
“Reckon that’s a fine notion.” Willie nodded and lifted his hammer. The air tasted young and sweet, the texture of honey and wildflowers. He added after a moment, his fingers positioning a nail, “I suppose it can be me.”
Willie stayed with me, constructing my fence until sunset simmered down along the holler. Then he settled on into my shack for the night, us swapping stories, laughing at one shenanigan or another, falling asleep fireside, enjoying each other as we’d done once upon a time. Now, a week later, with the flaming milkweed and the sage sky, Cricket slowed to a canter. A swallow swooped by, her song high pitched, as if she’d detected something hidden in the clouds.
We came over the rise, and down in the valley I dismounted. Olive called hello, as she scraped butter into a bubbling pot on her outdoor stove. It smelt bright and tangy, the jelly mixture a deep crimson. Olive shared that Poppy had scouted some early-fruiting sand plums. She tapped the spoon on a wooden dish and wiped her hands on her apron. “You know how to make jam?”
I untied my bonnet and rubbed the navy gingham across my collarbone. “Will you show me?”
Olive explained how she’d prepared the plums and mixed the fruit, pectin, and butter. I poured in sugar and brought the jam to a boil. As I stirred, she tidied the wooden butcher block and laid out the canning jars. Across the meadow, beyond the scorched, black earth, the shredded ends of relics trembled in the breeze. We’d hastily partitioned the unburnt half of the Browns’ barn with wide planks of raw-cut wood, the leftover shell lumpy and charred.
“Olive,” I said, and she turned to me, a couple of jars in her palms. “I do apologize, for everything.”
She nodded, lip tucked into her mouth.
“I’ve been considering our community, of what it means to be part of this family we’ve created.” I whisked the jam. “Until someone opens a school, I’d enjoy reading with your daughters.” From my satchel, I pulled out theMcGuffey’s Second Eclectic ReaderI’d bartered for when last in town.
I handed Olive the book. “Perhaps I could assign readings,” I said. “Spend some time tutoring the girls.”
She dried her hands and brushed her fingers across the cobalt-blue filigree cover.
“I’ve sent word out to folks that I’m hunting for theSixth Readerfor Sophia,” I said. “But until then we can discuss some of the novels or scientific journals I’ve in my home.”
“Thank you. You know how much schooling matters to me.” She held the book to her chest, the mustard and sapphire colors vibrant against her ivory blouse. “I’m still upset by your choices, but I don’t need atonement.” She reached for my hand. “We’re your friends, Minnie. Friends keep at it, through all the tricky bits.”
“You suppose that’s what friendship is?” I said. “To commit to figuring everything out together, to not flee when life gets hard.”
“Seems to me the make of it.” She released my hand, brushed along her hairline. The jam gurgled in a rapid boil, scenting of frothy springtime.
“Here,” Olive said, and showed me how to test the consistency, scooping out a spoonful, letting it cool. After a moment, she nodded that the jam had thickened enough.
“I’d like to help the girls,” I said, removing the pot from the fire. “We already chat about what we’re reading—I’d enjoy guiding them in lessons.”
“Well then,” Olive said, “you must permit me to make you supper at least once a week. How about you and Stot come round on Sundays?”
“I’d say that’s a tip-top plan.”
Though I’d fought against it, a community had built around me. These folks had wandered into my life and just settled. Olive and Niabi and Stotand the long ago, forgotten women. We worked for a time scooping jam into jars, with the soft, almond scent of the berries and the wind chimes clattering, the copper spoons clinking against metal pipes, the hollow thunking of the tree bark. Though I’d work to restore my friendship with Olive, my relationship with Magnolia was fractured, our life together forever unfinished. I supposed I’d always miss my sister—miss what might have been. Some days the ache deepened, other days it eased. But it wouldn’t pass on away. I dipped my spoon into the warm, strawberry-red jam. A gust hastened across the meadow and tossed fragments of soil up round my hem. I’d thought I’d let Magnolia go, but regret and longing just kept on haunting. I didn’t know how to release the past. My memory may still haunt me, but I wouldn’t let shame control me.
I’d write Magnolia this evening. I’d tell her of my land, and perhaps she’d visit. I envisioned her back in Kansas, standing atop the western hill, sunrise lifting over the lowland, wind rustling her cotton skirt, sprigs of lavender brushing her ankles, her rose-embroidered cape across her shoulders. Lark would stroll up and thread his arm across her collarbone, nestle her against his chest, and they’d watch the world arise. Perhaps my memories of them were idealized, the version I created not the whole truth. But I hoped she was happy, that Lark would love her as deep as she loved him. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my key, linked the chain behind my neck, joined the clasp. Perhaps you didn’t need to be finished to be a triumph.
After Olive and I filled the jars and plopped them into boiling water, we placed them on a towel to cool. The lids sealed with a soft ping, the delicate sound muted beneath the roar of distant wind, and on a sudden the afternoon darkened several shades. The sky dimmed with dull coppers and dusty beige, the heavens stormy and sick. A jagged line of dry lightning stitched through the sky, and faraway there was an elemental growl.
“I reckon a storm’s blowing in,” Olive said.
I nodded, noting the change in atmosphere. I said my goodbyes, with plans to drop by on the morrow to read with the girls, and then Cricket and I were off—I must rush home, call my animals down tothe lowlands. As we dashed uphill, a southern wind snapped across the plain.A storm’s coming,the land hissed at me. I turned my face toward the gale, but the wind abruptly dropped, the sudden stillness of the woodland unsettling. In the hush, voices rumbled underground. The women were rising.
