back to hanging up our bedclothes and underwear.
I’d thrown the last sheet over the line and was smoothing it out when the tractor stopped again. I lifted a damp corner and peered. The tractor stood vacant in the field, the disker turned at an odd angle, one side higher than the other. Half the round blades jutted up. Frank had only gotten as far as the turn at the end of the first row.
He stood behind the disks, looking down as if he had dropped something in the darker streak of freshly turned earth. I thought of the flask in his pocket and the time he’d been alone in the barn. I opened my mouth to let Adam know Frank needed help. But all I got out of my mouth was “Adam.” Something blue lay on the ground in front of Frank. Jennie’s dress.
I ran.
Adam dashed past me. Shoving Frank out of the way, he fell to his knees at Jennie’s side. Beyond him, two of the tilted disks gleamed red.
A broad, bright sash of blood surged across Jennie’s waist toward her hip. A furrow of dirt dented her dress hem. A gash gaped at each ankle.
She blinked calmly up at the sky, freckles bright against her pallor. Her hair the same red as the dirt under her. “I can’t get up.”
Blood bubbled at the slice in her waist. Adam slid his hands under her, lifting. She coughed and smiled up at us. A thin line of blood ran from the corner of her mouth to her jaw and down her neck.
We ran past Frank, sprawled where Adam had knocked him, a dumb animal look of incomprehension on his face, the whiskey flask empty beside him.
Adam ran to the truck, clutching Jennie. I sprinted inside for the keys. Her head slumped against her shoulder as he laid her on the truck seat. The blood sash had expanded to a full skirt. The hem dripped. Adam dashed around the front of the truck and climbed in. With my back pressed against the dashboard, I knelt on the edge of the seat facing Jennie, as he revved the engine.
The steering wheel slipped in his bloody hands. He cursed and tried to dry them on his blood-soaked shirt. Jennie’s pallor deepened. Her eyes opened, distant. The artery at her neck pulsed faintly, then flattened.
Nothing.
I touched her neck, then gripped Adam’s leg. He stopped. We were still at the top of the drive. All we had done was back the truck up and turn it around.
Without looking at her, he stretched one hand out and laid it on her chest. Then his head fell forward onto the steering wheel. We broke. Silence ripped into screams. Adam heaved against the steering wheel. Light filled the closed truck cab, blood filled the air. Her lips were white and motionless.
The four girls stared in through the driver’s-side window. Their faces came apart in recognition. I heard heavy footsteps, and Frank peered in my window.
Adam roared.
He leapt out of the truck. In one motion, he grabbed Frank by the throat and threw him. Frank bounced against the stable wall. Adam yanked him up again by his throat, Jennie’s blood on both of them now. Frank’s feet dangled inches from the ground. Purple-faced, he clawed at Adam’s hands.
“Daddy!” Sarah rushed Adam.
Adam’s shoulders crumpled and he let go. Frank scrambled toward the driveway and ran as Adam sunk to his knees.
Lil stood at the open door of the truck, staring at Jennie, her face equally white. I took her head in my hands and forced her to look away. She turned to me, open-mouthed with horror. I pressed her against my chest. I could not save her from what she saw.
Chaos enveloped the silence at the center of that day. Momma and Daddy arrived as the coroner drove up. Someone—I never found out who—moved the tractor, covered the blood, and cleaned the truck.
The girls vacillated between inconsolable silence and bursts of weeping. Adam stared at the floor, looking up only when one of the girls approached him. Then, he held them, his face vacant. Through my tears, his features had that same not-quite-held-together look that the girls all had when they were born.
That night, Sarah and Lil were already in the bed with me and Adam when we heard crying. “Is that Gracie or Rose?” Adam asked.
“I don’t know,” I said.
He left the bed and came back with both of them. We slept, the six of us in a dense