Daisy, another cow, nudged Ada’s hip. As she petted her, Ada realized, This is Seven’s daughter. She wished she hadn’t remembered.
Her father pulled out his toothpick and looked over the herd. “Haven’t had to milk by hand in fifteen years.” He handed her a bucket and pointed to the corner. “I washed out the old milk cans. Not sure what the co-op will say, but hopefully they’ll take it.” He turned to the nearest cow, and Ada did the same. They settled on their stools, held buckets between their feet, and began the slow process of squeezing out the warm, white fluid.
Ada rested her forehead against Daisy’s flank. She closed her eyes, felt the cow’s warm skin, its slow, steady breaths. If the creamery didn’t take their milk, they’d have to dump it out on the pasture. And they needed that milk money to pay for a new barn. They both knew this, just like they knew these cows would have to be milked, by hand, two times a day, until the barn was built.
As she milked, Ada tried to think about something else—her job at HoJo’s, the patch of blueberries, a few of them ready to pick. She tried to recall the last time she had healed, just the other day, when she’d chanted over Ellie’s little girl, who had an earache. But that seemed too long ago for a memory now pierced by flame.
And Ada couldn’t stop the questions: Why did God let the barn burn? Why kill Seven? And why couldn’t she heal? What had she done to anger God? But that was her grandmother’s God, a woman who always feared everything, her God of the Old Testament. Ada believed in the New Testament, its loving God. Things happened. God didn’t cause them. No, she didn’t want to believe in an angry, vengeful God, but it still was hard not to wonder.
She wiped her eyes on her sleeve and kept milking.
Two hours later, after the cows had been put out to pasture, Ada and her father circled the debris. The air hung heavy with humidity, the morning breeze gone. Sweat seeped down Ada’s neck, and heat rose off the ashes. Her father chewed his toothpick and kicked a charred rafter. She remembered the hayloft where they used to build forts, the chicken coop she stole into for eggs, and the warm, steamy comfort of the lower barn every morning and afternoon at milking. The barn had been so old, older than her father, older, even, than her grandfather.
Peter stepped around a twisted, metal window frame, the glass gone. “Damn,” he whispered. “Damn, damn, damn,” he said louder.
“No need for that, Peter Franklin.” Her mother surprised them. She walked across the lot, her hands bundled.
“Mama, you shouldn’t be out here.”
“Oh, I can’t milk, but my eyes still work. I can help look through the rubble.”
“Why don’t you just go back inside?” Peter said.
“And what, watch you two? I’ve already had enough of that. I’ll be all right. Just let me look. If I see anything, one of you’uns can pull it out.”
Peter shook his head, while Ada moved closer to her mother. “How are you, Mama?”
“Oh, it hurts some, but not terrible. And don’t go babying me neither. My feet ain’t frail yet, nor my head.”
Nor your tongue, thought Ada.
Her mother’s face softened. “I’m sorry, Ada. I just hated being trapped inside while you did all the milking. I’ll be OK out here looking.” She touched Ada’s cheek with her bandaged fingers.
Her father pulled on gloves and climbed into the rubble. Her mother followed, and so did Ada. She couldn’t imagine rebuilding, yet this was their only choice. If she closed her eyes, the barn still stood—the long stretches of red walls, the bright sheen of roof, the weathervane rooster that only moved an inch because of so much rust. Daddy always threatened to climb that roof and oil the rooster, and Mama scolded him down, saying, “We don’t need that thing to work.”
Now the rooster was a blob of melted metal somewhere in this black mess. She wanted to hear it squeak again. Last night, the wind had pitched a new tune with nothing to rub against, nothing to bother.
They looked for anything to salvage—chains that hadn’t melted, a pitchfork or shovel. Ada stumbled, bent, and tossed, her gloves turning black. Her father picked through boards, while her mother kicked the cinders. Dust burned Ada’s eyes. Layers of charcoal crumbled under her feet.
They found a few links of chain, a warped shovel, and one of Peter’s record books, the pages brown at the edges but the words and figures still readable. They uncovered little else. Then her father stopped throwing boards and just looked down onto a timber.
“What is it, Daddy?”
“Come look.”
They stared at a post they had walked by every day. It was a chestnut log Ada’s great-grandfather had felled up on the mountain, dragged by horse to this homestead, and hewed square. Once the new barn was completed, Jacob A. Franklin had carved his initials and the date, 1859.
Peter fetched his ax and chopped out this one section of post.
AFTER the morning, Ada craved something green and alive. She slipped through the makeshift fence and entered the orchard, where she wandered from tree to tree. The peaches hung like little lanterns, the apples like shiny green globes.
Past the orchard, Ada hiked over a small rise and out of sight of the rest of the farm. There, in a small bowl of land sat the farm’s newest venture—a half acre of blueberries. Long rows filled the remains of what used to be a beautiful hayfield, one of her father’s favorite spots. But in the late ’30s, the turnpike had “bought” ten acres, the highest, back section. Now, the high-banked road overshadowed the cove and cut off the mountain. Trash along the fence marked the edges, and traffic noise hung over the hollow like a constant, invisible fog.
Ada shaded her eyes and scanned the field. This was her project, these were her babies. She had read about a New Jersey woman in the Saturday Evening Post who had acres of blueberries on her farm. Ada had stared at the photographs and showed her father. At first he was skeptical, but eventually she convinced him. The two worked out a budget and marked off rows. That next spring, two years ago, they planted five hundred bushes.
Ada bent to inspect. Each bush had a scattering of berries, not enough to open to the public but enough to fill the root cellar. She had waited a long time for this, anticipating the first sweet bite.
Some of the earliest varieties already had turned blue. Ada picked one and spat it out, the tartness so strong. She picked another and this time found sweetness, more than she had imagined. They’ll all be ready soon, she thought as she rested on the grass. A pair of black birds—crows or ravens, she couldn’t tell—circled high overhead, wings almost touching, a spiraling dance to their own low caws.
Ada closed her eyes, but sleep wouldn’t come. She couldn’t visit these berries without thinking about Jesse. He had helped plant the bushes, his big hands hauling six at a time to where she crouched and planted. His big hands that had held her so tight.
Jesse lived in Roxbury, five miles away but in the next county, so they never went to the same school. Ada hadn’t met him until she was a junior in high school, he a senior. Her youth fellowship had a Halloween party at Osbaughs, and they invited several other YFs from nearby churches, one of them Jesse’s. He showed up in his varsity jacket, all muscles from football and working with his father, hauling block and mixing mortar. Dark brown eyes peered out over a dimpled smile. Twice he caught Ada looking at him, making her blush.
They went on a hayride over farm fields and back roads, the wagon tires whirring underneath. Someone had a bag of shelled corn, so at every sign, the boys threw kernels for a loud clattering. Any barking dogs got corned, too. Jesse sat beside Ada, and she was glad the night hid her crooked teeth because she couldn’t stop smiling. They had to sit close, the wagon full, and on the whole ride, Ada felt the warmth of his thigh next to hers. He didn’t