All the Living. C. E. Morgan

Orren's voice from upstairs. You alright?

      She turned toward the sound. Yes, she said, lying to him out loud for the first time.

      The days of her life on the farm took on a kind of regularity. After she rose in the morning with Orren and saw him off to the fields and cows, she continued to pick away at the house. She swept the floors and the crumbling back steps every day mopped every other day mostly because Orren left collects of crumbled mud as he came and went. She emptied all the kitchen cabinets, brushed out mouse droppings and set traps, looking first thing every morning for newly dead mice to toss out with the trash. When she found one, she carried it ceremonially to the can and let go the mouse so it fell to the bag's bottom, its neck still pinched under the bow, its tiny lifeless paws curled gentle and loose as a sleeper's hand.

      One morning as she carried the trash to the bin on the side of the house, she found the withered remains of Emma's crow-kept garden. It had suffered in the weeks since Emma's death. Black-ribboned worms clung to the remaining beans that drooped down off their short poles, and a great burst of zinnias withered into greige masses, their eyes turned groundward. Only a blue coned flower clung to its color, though the cone had dropped half its tiny petals and browned. Aloma bent down to it, but even as she stooped, a white-bellied bee alighted, its wings quivering madly, taking the last pollen from a miniature yellow heart. Then it flew away and the plant remained, it stood diminished but indifferent. Aloma thought briefly of rebuilding the garden, though she did not know how. But in the end she did not want to tend another woman's garden, she did not want to tend any garden.

      Once or twice when she was bored in the evening and supper was already prepared and waiting, she went with Orren to bring in the cows. She trailed after him as he wandered through the pasture, out around the hillock of trees with its purchase of shade to where they could no longer see the house and the ridge loomed high over them, a wooded limestone wall under a rack of clouds. There the cows—the few they had—collected around the pond, most times with their straight legs stock-still in the water like peculiar cumbrous waterbirds. Orren would circle around behind them, Aloma behind him, and up he would come alongside the oldest, with its aged world-weary face situated on its slim head. He touched her behind her shoulder blades, which winged out slightly below her neck, said, Sookcow, and went on walking in the direction of the house and the barn. The cow came along after him, her rump scissoring in measured paces. Aloma kept close to Orren as the others straggled in step behind. She was still wary of such big creatures and she glanced back frequently over the bodies of the cows to make sure they didn't come too close. Sometimes she pressed Orren for information when she judged his face eased up enough to allow for it. She wanted to know how old a cow could get and how much grass it ate, whether it had a bunch of babies or just a few.

      Once, after a few of these sessions, she said, And cows and steers are related how?

      Walking beside her, Orren made a motion like falling asleep into his hand, tucking his chin and pressing his splayed fingertips to his forehead. But he said, Now a steer is a boy cow that's cut.

      Well sure, she said.

      Then she said, But then what's a bull?

      He cleared his throat, looked up once at the sky. Them's the ones that still fuck, Aloma.

      Oh, she said, a grin. Where are they at?

      We ain't got one.

      How come?

      Sold it. I already got a calf coming. Too much trouble, it was Cash's thing. I don't want no more cattle but can eat up this grass. Just lawnmowers that shit. I ain't got time for no cows right now.

      Then she and the cows walked with Orren to the barn where he gestured Aloma to remain outside while he fetched hay—he did not want her to tangle with his rooster—and then he returned, padding the outside troughs with hay and dried corn and turning the spigot so the well water came up cold and splashing brilliant into the concrete trough. Then, finally, with the cows in the pen and the sun falling, he followed her with dragging footsteps up to the house so that he too could rest and eat.

      One morning in July, as she mopped the kitchen floor, Aloma heard Orren's truck start up and when its thrumming disappeared around the front of the house instead of dropping into the field, she flung aside her mop on a wild urge and tore out the front of the house waving her arms. Orren, catching her frantic motions in his rearview, floored his brakes and the truck skiddered hard in the gravel, flung up spitting stones and dust. He'd thrown open his door and had one foot on the ground before she ran up and said, Take me with you.

      He tossed back his head. Goddammit, Aloma, he said. You like to scared me to death.

      I want to go, she said, gripping his open door.

      Sure, sure, he said. He shook his head.

      He drove across the county line and into Hansonville directly to the bank and Aloma stared out the window, her eyes clutched at everything they passed as if it all could be possessed if stared at hard enough. She was silent beside him, her mouth open slightly, her hand held tight the handle of the door. She liked everything she saw.