We sat at the table and bowed our heads. I said a quick prayer of thanks, and then we tackled our food. Along with our vegetables, I’d thrown together some biscuits to take the place of the bread Pa had taken. We were eating well this summer, but even so, I worried about the winter. Would my potatoes be rotten when I dug them up? Or would they have failed to grow? Nothing was assured.

  “Sister, why did you sigh?”

  “Did I?” I looked across the table at her sweet face. What would I do without her? The summer days were long and required no candlelight. Outside the windows, evening faded into tranquility. In moments such as this it was hard to remember the cold, bitter winters. “I was thinking about my potatoes.” I pushed away my empty plate and folded my hands together on the table.

  Sadie patted my hands. “Don’t worry. You always figure out how to make everything nice and keep my tummy full.”

  I glanced around the tidy room. Dishes were washed and floors swept clean every night after supper. In the mornings, we folded our bedding into a neat pile and stored it on the rocking chair to keep the spiders from crawling inside and surprising us. The woven mats we slept on were rolled up and placed in one corner. Still, nothing could hide our poverty. Floorboards had rotted and loosened. Each of our curtainless windows had at least one crack that I feared would worsen with the next frost. The wood-burning cookstove needed blackening.

  No one but a girl who’d grown up as Sadie had would think this was nice. She didn’t see the room as it truly was. This was her home. I was her family.

  “Sister, if Pa isn’t my real pa, who is?”

  I started. We’d never talked about any of the details of her lineage. She knew, of course, that Mama had died and that I was her sister. The rest of it, I’d left out of the story. If she wanted to know more when she was grown, I would tell her. Until then I would keep quiet. “How did you know about Pa?”

  “He told me.”

  “When?” When had he been alone with her?

  “The other night when you were using the outhouse, he came home. I was sitting on my mat talking to Sugar. He sat next to me and whispered in my ear that I should come to him later. That I could sleep in his bed with him. That there was nothing wrong with it because I wasn’t his kid.” Her bottom lip trembled. “He said not to tell you. He scared me, Sister.”

  My dinner threatened to come right back up. I set my fork on my plate, trying to conjure the right words. Rage blinded me. Perspiration dampened the palms of my hands. “I’m very glad you told me this. It’s wrong for a little girl to sleep in a man’s bed, no matter if he’s her father or not. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.” She nodded, her big blue eyes never leaving my face.

  “From now on, you stay with me. If I go to the outhouse, you come with me.”

  “All right.”

  “You tell me everything. Don’t worry. I’ll never be mad at you.”

  “He said you would call me a liar.”

  I clasped my hands together under the table and tried to steady my breath. The pulse at my neck quickened. “Did he touch you?”

  She shook her head. “You came back, and he got up quick and went to the bedroom.”

  “When was this?”

  “Last night.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me this morning?”

  “I forgot.”

  I studied her. She didn’t lie. There was never any reason to. She had forgotten. I’d done similar things when I was her age. I hadn’t remembered Mama’s comings and goings in the middle of the night. It wasn’t until I learned the truth that memories piled on top of one another into the full truth. “Do you mean you put it aside, like locked it in a box?”

  “I think so.”

  “Have there been any other times you forgot?”

  “I don’t think so.” Tears traveled down her thin face.

  I took in another breath to gather myself. Every nerve in my body burned. I wanted to run into town and haul him out of the bar and slit his throat. For Sadie’s sake, I needed to remain calm. Otherwise, I’d scare her. “Come here, baby.” I held out my arms.

  She came around the table and crawled onto my lap. I was a tall woman, and she was petite and too thin, so she fit just as nicely as she always had. I could still remember the pleasant heaviness of the baby she’d been. “Listen to me, baby girl. I’m here. I’ll always figure out a way to keep you safe. I always have, and I always will. You hear me?”

  “I hear you.” The flutter of her eyelashes tickled my neck as she nodded her head.

  “If we have to leave here to do it, we will.” Even as I said it, I wondered how on earth I would manage that.

  I did the only thing I knew to do. The only thing that had ever worked. I prayed.

  12

  Wesley

  * * *

  Dew sparkled on the grass as I crossed the lawn to the vegetable gardens. Gus ran ahead of me, leaving tracks. I hadn’t had a chance to talk to Dax alone and wanted to ask him about Luci. Although I was embarrassed, my need to know outweighed my reluctance to seem a fool. I found him in the fenced-off vegetable beds watering his tomato plants. Spring vegetables were ready to harvest, including clumps of lettuce, carrots with tall tops, and peas that crawled up wooden spikes.

  He straightened at my approach and looped his thumbs through the straps of his overalls. “Good morning. What a sight for sore eyes you are.”

  “You too.” I adjusted my hat to get a better look at him. Gus walked along one row, sniffing as he went.

  “You sleep all right?”

  “Not really.” I’d tossed and turned in my old bed. It was too short for me now, so my feet dangled over the end. Unwanted memories had been my bedfellows.

  “He’s gone, lad. We’ll put him in the ground, and you can go on with your life.”

  “Have you and Mollie talked about coming with us?”

  “A tad, yes.” He scratched under the collar of his shirt. “She’s proud, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “But how she feels about you and your sister might win over the old pride. I can’t yet tell.”

  A fat robin fluttered over and landed on a fence post. Gus barked, and the bird flew away as quickly as it had landed. “The invitation is open. Whenever she decides.”

  “Will you stay and wait to see your mother?”

  “Yes, I’d like to. Lillian wants to as well. So we’ll be here a few weeks, anyway.”

  “Good, good. Mollie will want to stay and do whatever needs doing for Mrs. Ford. Perhaps after everything’s settled and sold, she’ll see that this change could be good for us.”

  I nodded as I shifted my weight from one foot to the other.

  “Something you want to ask me?” Dax’s eyes twinkled.

  “What? No. I mean, not really.”

  “You want to know how Luci’s getting on?”

  “Well, yes. How is she?”

  “She’s done fine. Just fine.” He smiled, pride in his eyes. “Hardest working girl you’d ever meet in your life. Clever too.”

  I nodded and looked up at the sky, already a deep blue despite the early hour. “I’m glad to hear.” Gus flopped down in the middle of the row between beans and squash and rested his head on his paws.

  “She asks about you,” Dax said, almost as if it were an afterthought. I knew better.

  “Yes?” My shoulders rose and fell. I wanted to beg him to tell me every detail, but I refrained. Although Dax would never mock me, I felt embarrassed over my schoolboy hopefulness that I’d remained in her thoughts as she’d remained in mine. “How, exactly?”

  “Similarly to you—as if it didn’t matter one way or another when I know sure as anything that it’s the opposite.”

  I shrugged my shoulders and grimaced as I turned my gaze toward the direction of the woods. “These feelings might just be a romantic notion.”

  “Might be. Might not be. I knew the minute I set eyes upon my Mollie. She was the one for me.”

  “I’ve thought about her more than I should.”

  “How much is should? Can we measure it?”

  I chuckled. “You think I should call on her?”

  Dax adjusted the brim of his hat. “Well, now, how else will you know?”

  “I suppose.”

  “They’ll be wanting you inside,” Dax said. “To go out to the cemetery.”

  “Right, yes.” I hesitated, wishing I could remain here with Dax and the scent of tomatoes ripening on their vines. It occurred to me that he wasn’t dressed for a burial. “Aren’t you coming with us?”

  Dax shook his head. “No, lad. I can’t watch them lower him in the ground and not spit on his coffin.”

  I stared at him, aghast.

  “When I think of all that went on in this house.” Dax stuck his hands in the pockets of his overalls. “To you, especially. I cannot pretend. I’m happy he’s gone and hope he burns in hell.”

  “He can’t hurt me any longer.”

  “That’s right. You can bury all the memories with the man, lad, and never think of him again.”

  I called for Gus. He rose from the warm ground and shook himself clean. As I crossed the lawn toward the house, an image of Father’s face when he reached for the strap told me that no amount of time would erase my memories. I could only use them to shape the man I wanted to be. Isn’t that the only thing we can do after someone has harmed us? Ensure that something good comes from our suffering?

  What would my good be? Only time would tell.

  We were home by lunch. The burial had been a paltry gathering of five. After the preacher tossed the first handful of dirt over the coffin, he said a few prayers and took our money, and we returned to our cars. There were no mourners to invite back to the house. After a meal, Roland and Lillian went out to the back porch to play chess. I wanted to be alone and wandered restlessly around the sitting room.

  Finally, not making a decision so much as my feet leading me in that direction, I went into Father’s study. My gaze lifted immediately to the painting of him that hung over the fireplace. I did not look at the strap, but I felt it there as if it were a poisonous snake ready to strike. I stared at the painting. The artist had captured him well. His cold eyes stared back at me. I shivered as the sounds of the strap against my skin echoed between my ears.

  Gus bounded in through the open door. He leaned against my leg and barked at the painting.

  “You remember him, old boy?”

  He growled.

  “Don’t worry. He can’t hurt me now.” I reached down to touch Gus’s head.

  “You didn’t take everything from me,” I whispered to the painting. “Your cruelty made me stronger. Better.” A man had emerged from my broken pieces.

  Perhaps I’d not been fully free until now. No longer confined by his presence, I could soar. Was it time?

  Time to find Luci?

  In the late afternoon while Lillian and Roland rocked on the front porch swing together, I took Gus out for a walk. I’d left my jacket and tie at the house and rolled up my sleeves. A straw hat provided shade for my eyes.

  Gus, as Atlas had done, took the lead. Wildflowers were in full bloom in the meadow. Tall grasses swayed in the breeze. When we reached the woods that led to Luci’s house, I hesitated. It had been years since I’d roamed these woods. Would I get hopelessly lost?

  Gus barked and twisted his head to show me which way to go.

  “You know the way?”

  He barked as an answer that could only be interpreted as yes.

  The pine needles crunched under my feet as I wove through trees, making sure not to twist an ankle on roots, rocks, and dips in the ground. Fifteen minutes later, Gus had led us right there.

  I stopped just outside the clearing. The shack looked better than the last time I’d been here. New boards had replaced the rotted ones. A log enclosure that I assumed was a vegetable garden had been built on the flat parcel of land before it angled downward toward the creek. Smart, I thought. Less distance to carry water than if she’d set it nearer the house. Chickens pecked in the grass outside a repaired henhouse. Bedsheets flapped in the breeze on a clothesline hung between the house and coop.

  Dax, I thought. This was all Dax. My heart ached with love for the man who surely hadn’t needed more work than he already had. I imagined him here during his days off, helping a stranger because I’d asked him to.

  I heard a rustle of leaves and looked over to see a young woman emerge from behind the garden structure. She carried two buckets. A little girl with hair so fair it was almost white trailed behind her. The baby, I presumed, now a girl.

  Despite her shabby clothes, Luci had grown into a great beauty—tall, slender, and straight-backed. Shiny honey-colored tresses had been gathered into a bun at the back of her long neck.

  From inside the shack, a man in a dark hat, dirty trousers, and a gray shirt that had once been white stumbled onto the porch. He held a flask in his left hand.

  “Luci, where’s my dinner?” He had the gravelly voice of a man who smoked and drank to excess.

  Luci set the buckets on the bottom step of the porch. The little girl hid behind her skirts. “We’ve nothing left. When I take the sheets to Mrs. Webb, she’ll pay me and I’ll go into town to get supplies.”

  “What happened to last week’s money?” He took a long swig from his flask.

  “You spent it on booze. I know you took it from my hiding place.” Her tone was cold and brittle. “And now we have nothing left but flour and lard.”

  “Well you best get on with it. I’m hungry.” He sat weakly on the steps. “Come here, Sadie girl. Let me look at you.”

  “Sadie, go play,” Luci said.

  Sadie. She’d named the baby Sadie.

  Sadie ran away to the side of the house and plopped onto the ground, drawing her knees to her chest and burying her face. Hardly a game, I thought. The leering way he’d looked after her chilled my blood.

  “You have no need to look at her,” Luci said.

  “I like pretty things,” he said, slurring his words.

  “You stay away from her, you hear me?” Luci drew closer to him.

  He waved his hand as if she were a fly bothering him. “Be quiet now. I’ve got an aching head.”

  Luci called to her sister. “Come on, Sadie. We’ll go see if we can catch a fish.”

  Sadie rose from her position and took Luci’s outstretched hand. They walked back to where they’d just come from. To the creek, I presumed.

  Gus and I waited until her father went back into the house. Then, careful to stay in the woods rather than the clearing, we headed toward the creek.

  13

  Luci

  * * *

  I breathed a sigh of relief when we reached the creek. If we stayed away for a few hours, Pa would probably have disappeared into town or over to Moonshine Mike’s.

  “I’m hot,” Sadie said. “Can I wade into the water?”

  “Yes, just be sure to hike up your dress so it doesn’t get wet.” I answered absentmindedly because I was focused once more on my idea for a fly. I’d found a wild goose feather in the yard that morning. It was a sign, I told myself. Now, I took it from my pocket and sat on a rock near the water. I tucked my skirt up around my knees and placed my feet in the cool water. As if to taunt me, a silvery-scaled fish jumped out in the middle of the creek. If only I had a hook. I’d racked my brain but couldn’t come up with an idea of how to make one from anything I had around the house.

  I heard a crack of a twig and turned to look, expecting to see Pa and already coming up with ways to get rid of him. But it wasn’t Pa. My heart thumped an extra beat at the sight before me. A man and a yellow dog stood near a fallen rotted tree. His eyes. They were familiar. I’d once seen them in a boy’s face, under a cap. Wesley? The boy grown into a man?

  He was a giant of a man, tall with wide shoulders and dressed in impeccable gray tweed trousers and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. A straw hat made a dappled pattern on his cheeks and chin. Next to him, a yellow dog with friendly eyes wagged his tail. He looked like Atlas, only he was a puppy, young and vibrant.

  Aware that my bare feet and calves were exposed, I tugged my skirt back into place and rose to my feet. “Is it you?”

  “Hi, Luci. I’m back.” He remained by the fallen log.

  “Is it really you?” I inched toward him, sure I was seeing things that were not there.

  “Yes, Wesley Ford. Is it really you, Luci Quick?”

  I nodded, too shocked to speak.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sadie splashing through the water toward me. By the time she reached me, her wet skirt clung to her bare legs. She pressed against my hip, nearly knocking me off my feet.

  He took off his hat and held it against his chest. Dark-blue eyes sparkled in the morning sun as he stared back at me. “I’m sorry if I’ve startled you.”

  “You most certainly have. I’ve been waiting for your return for almost six years.” The flirtatious lilt in my voice made me sound like a different woman. One accustomed to handsome men appearing out of the woods.

  “I was detained.” His full mouth lifted in a smile. “My father didn’t want me home, or I would have been here sooner.”

  “Oh my, it really is you.” My hands flew to my mouth. What a sight I must be. Hatless and wearing no shoes—hair a mess and my dress hardly better than a rag. He’d come back a sophisticated and elegant man. He had a strong jaw and high cheekbones. His features were no longer pinched and nervous. “I can’t believe you’re here. I’ve thought so many times about this moment.” I hadn’t meant to be so forthcoming. There was something so easy between us.

  He stepped closer, still holding his hat to his chest. “As have I. Even though you’ve changed from a girl, I would know you anywhere.”