the act as charged as a kiss. He roasted a turkey and made a pot of soup with its stock and tender meat, adding ingredients that amazed me: bacon, black beans, spinach—and cocoa. “Taste,” he said. My mouth closed around his spoon. He pulled it slowly from my lips, both of us flushed.
The day he left our apartment, he told me he’d be back in a month.
I ate for his return.
AS I WAITED OUT THE STORM, I TORTURED MYSELF WITH memories of that ice cream, that warm bread, that turkey soup. When the hail stopped, the sudden release from the din startled me into the here and now. One ping, then three, then one. A churchlike quiet fell. Only a swish of horse tail. A snort. A soft storm-over rain on the roof.
When I opened the kicker’s back door, there he stood, drenched but unharmed, thank God.
I called Gabriella again, but panic seized me as her phone rang. What was I doing? I shouldn’t talk to her now. How could I not tell her? I couldn’t lie to her; she’d know. I was about to hang up when she answered. “God, Mom. What?”
Her voice was sharp with impatience, which helped me find footing. She was safe. Good. Fine, be a bitch. That would make withholding the news easier. “Whoa,” I said, in our usual banter. “Forgive me for caring about your safety.”
“It’s not even raining here, okay?”
I couldn’t help but tease her. “Oh, and I’m fine, by the way. Your concern is so sweet.”
She breathed something like laughter. “What’s Dad doing?”
I opened my mouth, not sure what would come out. For a split second I thought I would tell her. “God only knows,” I said, which wasn’t exactly a lie. But immediately my nose burned.
Gabriella laughed. “Seriously, Mom, everything looks fine here. It’s sunny. We’re getting close to Cincinnati. The bus driver says the storm went north, so we’ll be okay.” She paused as if waiting for something, then said, “And we won, thanks for asking.”
How could I forget to ask? So much for acting like all was normal. “Well, I figured you would,” I said. She and her boyfriend, Tyler, always did. “Congratulations anyway.”
Now Gabriella paused. “You okay? You sound . . . weird.”
“Um, well, there was this tornado.”
“You worry,” she said, in the same tone someone might say, “You pick your nose.” “I’ll be home in an hour or so,” she said. “Tyler will drop me off. Love you! Bye!”
I opened my mouth to say the same but before I could, she clicked off. I stood there, phone to my ear, feeling tired, cold, and trampled.
Muriel butted her head against my banged-up shin. I hissed breath through my teeth, grateful for the distraction of external pain.
I WAS GLAD FOR MURIEL’S COMPANY AS I WALKED OUR property in the rain. I passed St. Francis, who lay facedown in the frothy, muddy mess of my lawn. I picked him up, but only his body rose in my hand. His head had been kicked clean off. Branches were down everywhere. The wind had stripped some aluminum gutter off the back of the barn, peeled some shingles from the house’s roof, and collapsed the rickety shed with my tractor parked inside it.
Cradling my arm, I walked the fence line of our pasture, checking to see that fallen branches hadn’t compromised any fencing that would later have me chasing goats and horses down the highway. Swirls of steam rose from each white gem of hail on the ground. In the northwest corner of the back pasture, I heard a noise that made the hairs on my arms stand up—I swore it was a child crying. I peered over the fence into the trees and scrubby brush on the other side. The new neighbors had told me they found the entire back property full of crude, makeshift booby traps—obviously to protect the hidden meth lab—and had to ask the local DEA to sweep those acres and declare them safe. “Are you okay?” I called. “Do you need help?”
The crying took on new force and volume, decidedly not human.
I climbed the fence and thumped down on the other side. A rustle of movement to my left, low to the ground, made me crouch and peer through the underbrush.
It was the orange cat.
Its front left leg was caught in a trap—a pair of metal jaws with ragged teeth. The trap held the cat up high on its leg, near its shoulder.
Ignoring the pain in my arm,