“No, I wouldn’t, because I don’t swing that way. I’m just pissed off right now, and you’re not helping.”
I drive in silence for a few minutes, until Rowe meekly ventures, “What will you do now?”
“I don’t know.”
I swing the truck onto the farm’s gravel drive. It tosses from side to side as we make our way to the front of the house. In the far yard, piggycorns race to greet us, kicking up their squatty hind legs in excitement.
There are maybe twenty of them, all white bodied, with golden horns that glisten in the sunlight and pink fur topping their heads. “Why are there so few pigs?”
“What?” she asks, facing me.
I throw the truck into park and kill the engine. I nod toward the swine. “Them. I thought pigs had huge litters. Why do you have so few?”
“I watch when a pig’s in heat, and I separate her. No use in having too many if no one’s buying. Besides, their feed’s expensive.”
“Huh,” is all I can think to say.
I’m numb, my confidence shattered, my plan burned up, and all hope gone.
“You know,” she says quietly, watching me closely with those soft brown eyes of hers, “if you’re nice—andonlyif you’re nice—Icanshow you how to work a chain saw.”
“I’m not nice.”
“I know that. But I do know how to work one. Not that I enjoy watching you eat crow. Oh, who am I kidding, of course I enjoy that.” And then, as if it’s a side note, she adds, “However, my dad taught me.”
So Rowedoesknow how to use one—and I laughed in her face at her first offer to help me, an offer that would have saved me in front of this entire town.
The guilt I now feel rolls over my bubbling anger like a creek over rocks, extinguishing it.
There’s a long, drawn-out moment before I quietly admit, “So youcanrun a chain saw? You? Sunbeam?”
She wrinkles her nose in distaste. “First off, I don’t like that nickname. It doesn’t sound genuine. Secondly, yes. My dad was a champion chain saw carver. There used to be competitions around here. He won ten years in a row.”
This gets my attention. “Do you think that if I can go back to the store ...?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugs noncommittally, tipping her face toward me. But her brown eyes spark with possibility. “Coleman Barrier has a heart in him—and to be honest, what he had you do wasn’t fair, and I think it may have been because ...”
Rowe shoots me a look full of uncertainty, and I know what she’s going to say. “Because he wanted to see what kind of man I am?”
“Yeah.”
“My thought, too.”
“Don’t worry, we won’t all make you jump through fiery circus hoops.”
I give her a wry look. “You’re not going to put the hoop over a pond of water filled with spiky objects and sharks?”
She tips her head back and laughs. “Look who’s readMatilda.”
The smile on her face makes my rib cage tighten. “Not only have I read it, but I’ve watched it.” Her smile threatens to be infectious, so I tip my mouth down into a frown. “Too many times to count.”
“Really? You don’t strike me as the type to enjoy children’s literature.”
I glance out the windshield. “I read to my younger sister sometimes.”
She’s quiet now. Sunbeam must be shocked that I’ve got a sister, and that I’d do something as humane as help piggycorns cross a roadandread a book to someone else.
She clears her throat. “I’m sorry about what happened. That Coleman Barrier put you through that.”
