I could not remember ever seeing so much rain. I did not stay long at the window to watch. I went calmly to the kitchen, lit a lamp, and cleared away the remnants of an abandoned reading lesson.

  Tears did not suit me anymore. I had lost the taste for them. With dry eyes I sat at the table and blew out the light. I could think of nothing to do. I returned to the window and watched the water pouring, pouring down. Then I watched it all transform to darkness.

  I received no visits from Henley or Beck. No one came to kick me off the land. So Lucille had kept her word and called them off. I remember Mama letting slip angrily that there was nothing more powerful than a white woman’s tears, which could move men and mountains.

  Sure enough, Lucille had moved Jake.

  When it grew light enough I went out and looked at the ruined farm. Still mine, still my little piece of earth to protect and cherish. I loved it to pieces. The rain continued gently. I did a walk around the property, trying to recall exactly what needed to be looked at. Our animals were fine. The two pigs Bug and Booger had escaped their fence and were rooting around in the half-drowned apple orchard. I took Pa’s stick and chased them up the hill again.

  Our rooster was gone- swept away, I thought- but I found him sitting on the roof of the coop by the time I got back from pig-herding. Rain soaked his feathers and dripped off his comb. He seemed to be enjoying it. I left him be.

  Jake had repaired the fences well. They were all still standing.

  By the time afternoon arrived, my dress was a sodden mess and I was freezing to the bone. My to-do list still felt incomplete. Jake would have done all the chores in half the time. The man was a workhorse. I found myself slogging through the rest of them. I grew dangerously cold. I noticed only because I could no longer move my fingers. So a little stove fire kept me company for the rest of the day.

  By that night the storm stopped completely. Ended, as all things must.

  Another day passed. In the morning, Shug, of all people, came around calling my name. I told him to please go to hell and never return. He cursed, stumbled, and went to the barn. Likely to fish out the jug of mash whiskey he had hidden there.

  This acquired, he then sat on the porch with the intent to drink it. I got my pig-chasing-stick and shooed him away. He raced off the back road, saying he hope I went to hell. I said I hoped I met him there.

  The day after that, Jake showed up. He knocked very hard, waking me from my sleep, which I had done at the kitchen table.

  “Minnie?”

  I decided to ignore him. I could chase Shug, but not Jake. Jake would not run from a pig-chasing stick.

  “Minnie!”

  Bang bang, went the door. I huddled in the kitchen. He tried the knob again, then I heard him leave off and walk down from the porch. I knew he was going around to try the back window. The one he had claimed he was going to fix. Well now he had Lucille’s back windows to worry about. I scurried there and dragged the dresser across it. Who knew where I got the strength.

  “Minnie!” he shouted.

  Like a furious tiger he circled the house. I still had his pistol, the one he’d handed me the day before as we were making our escape. Before Lucille Beck came and ruined it all.

  He attacked the front door again. The sound was horrible, booming through the whole house. I should have known Jake wouldn’t let up until I or the door gave in.

  I opened it. He stared cross-eyed at the nose of his own pistol.

  “I recall I told you to get lost,” I said.

  “Don’t point that thing at me.”

  I lowered the barrel. “Leave.”

  “I believe this is my house, too.”

  “I believe you gave that up when you left.”

  “I came to explain,” he said. “Minnie, please.”

  “Please what?”

  “Beck and Henley are gonna leave you alone here on out.”

  “I guess I have you to thank.”

  He squinted. “What’s wrong with your eyes?”

  They were dry and irritated, like my throat. I cleared it. “I don’t think that’s your concern now.”

  He shook his head. His own eyes were couched in dark circles like bruises, the color the sky had been when it opened up and dumped over everything.

  “There’s flooding in the town,” he said.

  “Yes. That happens when it rains.”

  “Some folks might lose their homes.”

  “Will Lucille?”

  “What?”

  “Will you and Lucille live together now? With your child?”

  A muscle jumped in his forehead. Could I get him to lose his temper? To shout, throw things, hit me? No. He was too controlled for that.

  “I’ll be livin’ with her,” he said. “But you’ll be safe. I made sure of that.”

  “How?”

  “I made sure of it,” he repeated.

  The silence stretched. I tried to recall the rage I had felt at John Miller. Maybe then I could gather those feelings and fling them at Jake. Scream, cry, hit him, like jilted women were supposed to do. That kind of anger was acceptable in a woman, wasn’t it?

  But I couldn’t do any of those things. Even if he had betrayed me, perhaps lied to me, left me, the love was still there. Just sitting. Like a weight on my chest I couldn’t push off.

  Jake’s eyes searched mine, and found no pity there.

  “Hell, Minnie.”

  “Please go away.”

  “No. You’re gonna let me explain myself.”

  “You said you didn’t have a choice,” I said. The numbness I had felt that night he left me was finally gone. I had had time to nurture my anger.

  “You and your pride,” I said. “You couldn’t stand to look dishonest. You wanted to prove you weren’t some no-count McCoy who couldn’t look after his own.”

  “I couldn’t leave Lucille on her own. It wasn’t about my pride!”

  “I’ll tell you why she won’t say the real father,” I said. “It’s cause he’s a black man. I’d bet you money that’s why. ‘Cause her Daddy and Henley will go find that man and break his legs. Better you take the fall for him.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “It makes sense,” I said. “For her to name you as her best option.”

  He registered the insult.

  “Anyway,” I said brusquely, “Thank you for taking the time to see me.”

  I stepped back and closed the door. Before I could remove my hand from the knob he pulled it gently but firmly back open.

  “I’m not done, Minnie.”

  “No? You haven’t said enough?”

  “I was young,” he said. “When my Pa took me away from the whorehouse. About three years. I can still remember it.”

  I frowned. “What?”

  “There was a woman there- Lindy- who was pregnant. About as big as Lucille. She was nice, but she had a disease and nobody would go near her.”

  Jake’s voice was low and husky. He opened the door wider, leaning over me.

  “She would have had to deliver all by herself in the room next to my Ma,” said Jake. “Alone. In pain. And the baby would be born blind or dumb or something because of her disease. That weighed on Lindy all that time. I heard her cryin’ at night through the walls.”

  “Stop,” I said.

  “Lindy was keen enough to get her hands on a customer’s gun. She blew her head off a week before her time. They thought of cuttin’ the baby out to baptize it so they could bury it in Christian ground.”

  “Did they?” I whispered, horrified.

  “No,” said Jake. “No one had the stomach for it.”

  His eyes misted over, remembering. “If I have a way to prevent that happenin’ to someone else,” he said, “I’ll go for it. I’m sorry, Minnie.”

  “It wouldn’t be your fault,” I said. “Lucille could find someone else to take the fall. It doesn’t have to be you.”

  “As soon as she has the baby,” he said, “Maybe you and me could work something out.”

  “No,” I said. “No.”

  I knew how it would be. I would be the concubine to Lucille. The Other Woman, the colored girl Jake had on the side, like you would have a spoon of greens and a slice of cornbread on the side. Something he could choose on a whim.

  “I won’t be your whore,” I said. “And I don’t want to be your wife anymore.”

  He looked at me like I had grown horns. “It is true,” I said. My voice took on a new layer. “I married you because I liked you. I loved you. I thought you loved me, too. I never judged you-”

  “I still love you,” said Jake.

  It was the first time he had ever said that, but it meant nothing now.

  “No one in this town ever thought I was worth a damn,” I insisted. Let him see that his confession hadn’t ruffled me! “You don’t see me falling over myself to make nice to them. The other morning you wanted to fight to defend yourself. Now you’re caving in like some coward. Trying to dress it up like you’re a hero.”

  “I’m no coward, Minnie Sampson.”

  I said nothing to that. Silence is the best language for contempt.

  “I wasted your time, comin’ here,” he murmured. His eyes were very bright. “I only came to see if things could be different.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you.”

  Jake’s mouth worked around something else to say. Compliments, assurances, apologies. It seemed his words could only work on other people. Never on me. Was the desperation in his eyes an act? The nervous shaking of his hands? Was the seething tremor under his words just fear, not anger? Oh, Jake. No language to express his feelings. No language because, smart as he was, he had only the cowboy’s language to speak for his heart, not the language of books and poetry. It was not enough. Not nearly enough.

  A crack appeared in my hardened resolve. I bariccaded it.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “It’s for the best,” I said. “Thank you for helpin’ me and bringing me home. But you and me are done.”

  “No,” he said angrily. “You’re not done with me.”

  “I am,” I said. “Goodbye.”

  His hand slipped off the doorknob. I shut the door hard. Heard him pacing on the porch for a few minutes, maybe muttering, thinking of something to say. Nothing came. He turned and left. I watched him go. Again, no tears. But I had lots of anger. I wrapped that anger around me like a shawl. I let it harden. All of me could harden with it. Flesh, hair, teeth, nails.

  I didn’t need a man anyway. I didn’t need anyone. I was weak and girlish once. I was stupid and trusting. I was Mama’s pet, Daddy’s girl, John Miller’s trophy, and Jake’s...whatever. Wife? Woman?

  “I’m Minnie,” I said. “Minnie Sampson. I’m Minnie Sampson. Minnie.”

  I went inside and closed the door and sat at the kitchen table. There were still some chores to do. I’d get to them later.

  Two hours passed. I got up from my nap and went outside. But Jake, before he’d left, had watered and fed everything. He had even weeded the soggy garden out front.

  It filled me with a new anger. I vowed if I ever saw him cross my property again I’d shoot him dead.

  *

  The next month passed like a fever. I never left the farm. I weeded, scraped, slogged, cleaned, and scrubbed out whatever I could find. Keeping busy felt like going to church. I hardly felt the cold.

  On the first of February I got my first visitor. It was Mrs. Gloria. She came with a big basket, walking up the hill as if all the time in the world was laid out just for her.

  “Miss Minnie,” she called.

  I was happy to see her. I fetched her some water and laid out a tablecloth. She set her basket down in the kitchen and stood me in the window light.

  “You look sick,” she said.

  “Do I?”

  “Your skin’s all dried like a prune. Your hair ain’t been combed in days. And you got that bright-bright look in your eye.”

  “I feel fine,” I said. It was true. I had never felt better. The muscles of my arms and torso were strong and supple. My legs felt like they belonged to someone else. I woke every morning with a feverish energy. From the moment I stepped out of bed to the moment I collapsed back into it, I was scrambling. When had I ever felt so alive?

  And the fruits of my labor were apparent. The farm was surviving.

  “I’m fine,” I repeated.

  “I heard you been up here by yourself,” she said, watching me with her old eyes.

  “Yeah.”

  “Heard your man walked out on you.”

  “News travels fast,” I said.

  Gloria opened her basket. “Look. I got you some squashes.”

  “They survived the storm?”

  “My squashes survive everythin’.”

  She began to cook one for me, clattering around the kitchen. We sat down and caught up. She told me of the flooding in her area, and the hardships. I told her nothing. Having been so long without conversation, I had forgotten how to make it.

  “Anyway,” she said, wrapping up her review, “I figured you would want to know. Don’t go to town for a while.”

  “Why?”

  “There’s fever,” she said. “Somethin’ fierce. Babies is droppin’ off like flies.”

  “Oh.”

  She sucked her lower lip, looking around the kitchen. “It’s funny. You got outside lookin’ like the garden of Eden. Even in this winter. But in here look like you ain’t run a duster or moved a broom for a century.”

  I hadn’t noticed.

  “How about I clean in here,” said Gloria, “And you lie down.”

  “No,” I said. “I’m not tired.”

  “I said,” said Gloria, “You go lie down, Minnie Sampson.”

  I went to bed. I slept like the dead.

  When I woke up, Gloria was gone, but someone was capering outside. I thought it might be Jake. I found the pistol and loaded it.

  “Go home, you old fool!”

  Gloria’s voice. I opened the front door. Shug was singing, dancing a jig in my front lawn. Wind carried the smell of spirits to my nose. Gloria had seated herself on the porch, and the smoke of her cigarette mingled with the stink of Shug’s whiskey. The smell reminded me of the Red Rooster.

  Shug stopped dancing, out of breath. Then he puked in the lawn, and laid down next to it.

  “Jesus Saves,” said Gloria, chuckling around her cigarette.

  “Is he alive?”

  “Somewhat.”

  I sat with her. Her eyebrows shot up. “Lord and Christ, girl! Put somethin’ around them shoulders!”

  I got my wrap and sat with her. Shug began to stir. He clambered to all fours, shaking his shaggy old head like a buffalo.

  “Why’s he drink so much?” I wondered, sickened.

  “ ‘Cause he’s sad,” said Gloria.

  “Is he?”

  “Nobody wakes up one mornin’ and decides to get that way,” she said. “Folks do all kinds of crazy stuff when they get mixed up inside. When they got an old hurt that won’t go away.”

  “I wish he wouldn’t drink.”

  “Me too,” she said. “We was married, once.”

  “What!”

  “Oh, I couldn’t stand his ass,” she snorted. “But he pestered me long enough and I gave in. Didn’t know he was such a drunk fool. I left him for ten years and came back thinkin’ he’d changed.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I ain’t mad. You can’t change folks or force ‘em to be with you. If they wants to go, you let ‘em go.”

  “I know that.”

  “Good,” she said. She sucked at the cigarette again. I remembered Billie, the old whore from Floyd, who had smoked too. But Gloria made it seem elegant, like sipping from a wineglass. Her long arm stretched out and rested on her knees.

  “I heard your man stayin’ with that white girl. The Beck.”

  “He’s not my man.”

  “I heard she’s bout to drop any day now.”

  “Is she?”

  “Heard he’s buildin’ her a cabin all to herself.”