there in their barns. But now that the stu=’s as good
as gold, they just don’t want to see it go to a goat.
Cows? Yes. Horses, sure. But wait till old Lucy drives
up wanting a few bales for her goats—then it’s no
deal, ma’am, sorry I can’t help you, but I sure can’t.
Why don’t you try on down the road.”
“Don’t call them that,” Charlie said. He’d been so
ready for an insult that this one seemed directed at
him. And it was, wasn’t it? She looked down her
nose at everybody.
“Why not?” She turned to him, seeming genuinely to want to know.
Charlie shrugged, thrown o= guard. “It ain’t
right,” he said lamely.
She turned away, slapped her hand on the magazine, pulled it back toward herself, and opened it.
“Well, Charlie? I wonder what they call me Twenty-
>ve years they’ve kept me shut out. Not a single one
of them has ever o=ered me a hand. Sni;ng around
this place like vultures, wondering when I’m going
to throw in the towel. Meanwhile half the time I’m
out here with no help, and there’s just simply some
things a woman can’t do by herself.”
Really? he thought. That’s not what you say. He
shifted his weight. “Still ain’t right.”
She let out a violent rush of air, put her hands on
top of her head. “This is not an easy life, Charlie. It
is one hell of a life. I’ll tell you, when I was your
age—” she looked at him—“How old are you?”
“Eighteen.” Here it comes, he thought, putting
his spoon down and clenching his >st. All right. Give
me the lecture. Tell me I should go home. Go on. I
can take whatever you’ve got.
She looked up toward the ceiling as if searching
for something. “Eighteen. When I was your age—no,
maybe a little older—I thought I had >gured out the
secret. My parents’ life, it was a trap, I could see that.
All about appearances. They were just consumed with
keeping up appearances. My father worked himself to
death so we could live in the right neighborhood. And
my mother. God, my mother. Cocktail parties and
bridge games. She had these guest towels—the guest
linens, she called them—and she took them out of
the closet and ironed them and put them out in every
bathroom when company was coming over. It
seemed like that was all she was ever doing—
unfolding the ironing board to iron the guest linens, hanging them up, folding them up, and putting them back
in the closet—and god forbid anyone should ever use
these towels to actually dry their hands.
“The thing was, all my friends were buying into it.
Getting married straight out of college, moving into
houses just like their mothers’ with a mono-grammed set of towels all their own. Not me. Oh no.
I was too smart for that. I got out. I started new.
Never mind that I wouldn’t have any money. I’m
going to live simply, I told myself. I’m going to live
simply and close to the land. Get my hands dirty and
>nd real satisfaction, and I found a man who said
that was what he wanted, too.
“But it turns out—it turns out. One more year, I
always tell myself, one more year and it will be running like clockwork. Every year I think, just make it
through kidding season, Lucy. And then kidding season comes, and something happens like that little
white kid, and it takes years o= my life. Years. No
matter how hard you work, it’s a gamble and the
house always wins. Like the weather. Lord. I don’t
think we’ll ever see rain again.”
Charlie felt ?ushed and disoriented, not sure
which way was up, the feeling of falling in a dream.
What was she trying to say to him? “It will break
sometime,” he mumbled, failing in his attempt to
sound like a man. Wasn’t that what she wanted him
to do? Comfort her?
She let the magazine slap shut. “Of course it will,
Charlie. Don’t think I don’t know that. I’ve been at
this longer than you’ve been alive. Of course it will
break. That’s not the point. It will break and then it
will dry up and then it will break again. They’ll stop
eating whatever it is they’re eating out there and the
milk will get back to normal and there’ll be money
coming in again. So it goes. That’s not the point. The
point is, Charlie, we’re in for a hell of a fall.”
We? Charlie looked around the kitchen in a
panic. We?
A week later Lucy headed out to Georgia on a
tip she’d gotten on some cheap hay. She would be gone
overnight, staying with friends, and her preparations
