Which one? she said, her hand pressed a slight resistance onto his.
The real one, he said and nodded up at the big house.
Yeah, she said slowly, thought to say something more, but desisted. She let him lead her around the side and she peeked at him as he looked up at the height of it, squinting, his thin lips flattening further. He hitched up the waistband of his jeans and he crossed his arms over his chest and she saw clearly she had been mistaken. He had not turned old in three weeks' time, it was as though someone had come along with a plane and sheered off all the extra that once cushioned him. He was like something corded, every movement curtailed. She had noticed this too that first day after the funeral when he stepped from his truck looking pared as a carving and just as stiff, though he'd felt the same under her hands when she held him. But there was something different in his carriage—he was newly fitted to his skeleton—something that she saw now was a lasting change and not just a momentary trick of grief. This new bounded self had banished the old.
At the rear of the house, Orren steered her down along the rutted path that led to the newer, smaller house. She stepped smart to match his pace, eager to see the inside and maybe show him how much she preferred it to the large and rambling structure behind them. But he stopped abruptly only partway down the path and she stumbled against him and put her hand on his hip to steady herself. Orren raised one arm and pointed out toward the hills.
It's us all the way to the ridge, right under, he said. From where they stood at the crown of the tobacco field, the whole of the back property spread before them. The tobacco, sallow and tawny too early on its undersides, ran halfway out to the ridge where it met the young corn with its young sprouts of hair that skirted the upslope. Between the rows, the dirt was pale as cocoa powder. A few cows had wandered down off the hillside and spread out still and easy in their late-afternoon pasture. They stood singly, one or two with their hides pressed to the fence, watching or perhaps not watching but gazing slackly beyond the strictures of the field. One stood half in and half out of the barn, undecided, unmoving.
Orren reached around and placed his forearm on the back of Aloma's neck. It was heavy and warm and she felt the imposing damp of his sweat.
This is ours now, he said. She swallowed and nodded, but then she said, That makes me a little scared.
No, don't be scared, he said and when she turned to face him, he suddenly looked so much older than she, though he was only three years her senior, that she felt her youth on her like a yoke.
The store was only three miles from the house on the road to Hansonville, the town that straddled the county line twenty miles beyond. When she'd asked what was for dinner and Orren said eggs or peanut butter and not smiled for the irony of it, she took it upon herself to drive down the road in the thinning evening and find them something to eat. The store was a clapboard one-room with nothing else in sight but the trees and the fields and a few dogs that loped across the road farther up, road-raised and emaciated, just skin over legbone and brisket. Two aging pumps stood off to the side of the building. There were no other cars when Aloma parked. The only thing that moved was a sign that hung by a dog-tag chain in the window that read CHEAP TOBACCO, swinging on the false breeze of a fan. Inside, the store was split in two, one half a small grocery, the other a craft shop with rows of hand-painted gourds stenciled with Indian designs. They filled the store with the scent of autumn in summer.
Haddy said the woman behind the counter. Aloma waved, head down and saying nothing, and steered a small buggy along the aisles. She found a ham in the cooler and some kind of green veined with bright red and a few more vegetables that she did not know the name of and had no idea how to cook. She picked up a dozen eggs and opened the carton to see if any of the shells were cracked, she had seen a cook at the school do that once. A white slab of fatback, a gallon of milk, half and half for herself because she was freed from that place, she could eat what she wanted, then a box of chocolate cereal as well. Behind the register, the woman and her hair watched in the bulging mirror tacked above a wall of potato chips. When Aloma's buggy was half full of things she didn't know how to prepare, she wheeled it to the counter.
Mind to put half this on the Fenton tab, she said, just as Or-ren had instructed her.
Oh, the woman said, taking another, closer look at her. Are you from up there, bless your heart.
Aloma nodded, regarded the woman.
Bless your heart, the woman said again. It's real sad about them. She said this with one hand to her high gray hair and the other upending a pencil over and over again.
That lady was real nice, she said. She always set and talked awhile when she come in. And such pretty red hair. Sure had a lot of opinions, though. She watched Aloma as she said this, her lids ridden up so that Aloma could see too much of her eyeballs, big glossy things. Aloma only nodded again, slowly, clutching Orren's billfold in her hand.
It's terrible what people don't deserve.
Yes, said Aloma carefully. She didn't like to yesmam, it always tasted like something foul on her tongue.
The woman leaned over slightly, her lips pursing like a tight unblossomed flower the closer she came. Aloma did not lean back, she gripped the buggy tight.
Now, I don't mean to sound unchristian, but which one didn't die?
Aloma blinked a few times. Orren, she said.
Now, is he the little one?
Aloma looked at her in confusion. He's about yay high, she said, holding her hand a good four or five inches over her head.
The woman threw her head back and laughed. No, I'm saying, is he the old one or the little one?
Oh, Aloma said, the younger one.
You ain't from around here.
No, my people were from Cady Station.
The woman's eyebrows rose slowly to greet her hair. I sure can't hear that in your talk.
Well, I went to a school.
We all got schooling, darlin, the woman said coolly.
One of the mission schools, Aloma said, her eyes narrowing. They worked a few things out of us.
Uh-huh. And what else they learn you up at this school?
I learned to play piano.
Oh. The woman smiled again, the tight mouth easing. Now, that's a right useful thing for a girl to know.
Yes, said Aloma, pushing her buggy forward a little. It's a good thing for a girl to be useful. She did not smile. The woman straightened up and took her time inspecting this statement and then with no speed whatsoever used her pencil to punch the keys on the register to ring Aloma out. But her eyes stayed on Aloma as she did this, and when the question came, Aloma was waiting for it.
So that little one is your husband. It was a question switch-hitting as a statement.
Aloma did not blink this time. You're goddamn right he is, she said evenly and her face did not alter, but a flush ruddied her cheeks before she even finished her sentence. The woman's smile fell by increments until her lips were a little red slash across the bottom half of her face. She uncurled one taloned hand, palm up. Sixteen ninety-five, she said. And instead of using the tab, Aloma paid her cash out of Orren's billfold, then picked up the bags, turned her back on the woman, and left without another word.
She was sent to the mission school the month before she turned a thankless twelve, not because her aunt and uncle couldn't handle her anymore, but because there were nine in the house now—the adults, their five children, one foster child, and Aloma. Her aunt and uncle had always been fine to her, they possessed a kind of hollow-headed decency that couldn't be disparaged. When they told her of the school, they were gentle as doctors, and their voices said, This won't hurt a bit, and in fact, it had not really, at