It was the summer of her city-leaving, her tiny duffel bag, her sad excited goodbyes, eyes filled with TV images and of how life on a mortgaged farm was death, that city life was opportunity, was life, a good job, excitement much better than cows and parking on side roads with country boys who could see themselves working the farm while she could only envision, farm work, too many babies, and old by 35, embittered, averting her eyes by then to TV sirens and girlfriends who went to school, or went and found jobs, sending money back home, writing letters about Hollywood, or New York, about how they had married well, made a lot of money and were helping to pay off the farm mortgage, found a new life in Amsterdam, in Nairobi, in London, in Cairo, all the while concealing the truths of the waitress job, the unpaid internship, the boys who only wanted one thing, the brutalities, the dirty streets, the walking damaged, the cruelties, the vampires who wanted you, your money, or your ability to make money for them, the casting couch, the "what I did for money interludes," the shock and awe, the guiltynesses, the loneliness in the one-bedroom walk up, the shame at having to borrow money to pay the rent, the utter horror of having to contemplate going back home a failure, to live in the basement, even with that college degree, now thousands in debt, and granddad on his death bed, showing up for the funeral, borrowing the money for the plane flight, her childhood bed room just as it was, mother telling everyone how successful you were, the bankers son, hovering, wanting to propose to you, and you ignoring him, feeling both sexually unclean and so much more experienced that you should have, the frat party still fresh in your mind, the let-down feeling, the feeling of being old at 25, the mill now closed down, the litany of those dead gone, never to return; returnees the failures, come back already dead in our little cemetery town where only the unsophisticated live, the uneducated, the rude, the high school football star, now pumping gas and working in his dad's grocery store, the inward hurt where the past seems to have murdered the future, uncomprehended, sitting she was, at her fifth grade desk, tiny now, still stars in her eyes, hope alive, five gold stars, the boys flirting with her, smartest prettiest girl in fifth grade, in the flower of youth, now come back to contemplate her future, taking care of mom now after her stroke.

End of Chapter One

Chapter Two

Her mother looked tired, tubes in her nose, humiliated she was and she didn’t want her daughter to see her that way, Jennifer didn’t want to see her mother that way, the humiliation of it, as she lay there Jennifer was sure she had made her decision, that it was her time to die, that since her husband had died there was nothing to hold her here, the children were more or less on their own, she had done all she could, there was little else she could do, the farm was still in debt and the choices were slim, sell the place and have everyone get a share and go their own ways in the unwelcoming world, abandon the land, leave what the family had spent three generations building, selling off stock, looking for wage work in town, counting up the insurance, getting the funeral costs, her funeral costs, her having told them not to put her into the ground, she could not bear being in the cold ground, she told them to cremate her and to scatter her ashes on the farm where she was born, she looking at Jennifer making her promise to scatter her ashes where dad’s ashes were and granddads, grave alongside grandmother’s grave, down by the grove of trees by the river, where the sunlight comes up so pretty, where dad had taught Jennifer to shoot, steady, squeeze the trigger slowly, sight down the barrel, how to shoot prairie dogs whose burrows could and did break a horses’ leg, and horse would have to be shot, and prairie dog burrows would have to filled in to save another horse from stumbling down, breaking a leg and maybe giving the rider a bad spill, or worse, a broken neck like Jennifer's brother had taken that bad spill and Jenny could only look and cry out, and try to help, try to get him to stand up, and he couldn’t, couldn’t talk or speak, and Jenny rocked him in her lap, and he died in her lap, and she had to put him on his horse bring him back tied to the saddle, home where the shock and the consternation was dark silence, where mom and dad stood in the silence of the loss,  the incomprehensible magnitude of the loss, the tragedy of it, the suddenness of it, all these memories crowding her mind as she talked despite her labored breathing and having Jenny’s face waver before her, as she summoned her voice and her strength beckoning Jenny to come close to hear her speak, to tell Jenny what Jenny did not know, that had been hidden in the family all these years, coming out at last in her raspy tone, "Jenny darling" she said, "look, look," her voice failing softly and then regaining strength, “Jenny," she said “look under the loose floor board in my closet, look in the closet,"her tone fading and Jenny repeated her softly, in what she thought was her mother’s delirium, her fevered mind, trying to retain its grasp on conscious, but her mother would not relent saying “No, no, listen, look under the loose floor in my closet, do you hear me, do you understand” she said seeing Jenny nod her head slowly, she continued “look under the floorboard.”

End of Chapter Two

Chapter Three

  She continued to talk of it until the doctor came in looking at Jenny, nodding to her, indicating, Jenny knew, that it was time to go, that her mother, as the doctor had warned her, could not talk much, and that, she Jenny, should let her rest, and rest Jenny could see was good idea for her; her mother never rested in all her life, Jenny had not seen her rest from the moment she rose mornings until night time she worked, washing, cleaning, drying and cooking, thrilled with her once a year dress and proud of her meals, her work with the church, dignified too, in the silences she endured with Dad, the two of them seldom talking something Jenny seldom questioned learning over time to take her long walks, to enjoy her solitude, taking her little boat down to the slough pretending she was an explorer, a pirate sailing seas, boarding ships and slashing the sailors, taking the gold and then on to another ship constantly on the move, never thinking, but enjoying the excitement of it, the shock on the faces of the other sailors when they realized that she was girl pirate, hoisting her mainsail, on the run, sailing away from her house realizing one day when she was about seven that other people's parents talked to one another, that they laughed together, that other people's families was not exactly like her own, that they had things her family did not have, all this ran through Jenny's mind as she left the hospital, her mother’s words still in her mind, worry still in her mind, and trying to decide what she would do if Mom died, that mother who rejoiced when she got her first washing machine, when she got her first refrigerator, all second hand, her mother who wanted as a girl to be a ballerina, to dance with  some big city the lights upon her, her face lit up, beautiful, that mother was running through Jenny's mind, the picture of her now lying there in that hospital, her story might end that way, might be over, might end that way with just her, Jenny, there to hold her hand, prompting Jenny to feel the sad finality of it, a tragic finality after which, she Jenny, would be alone in this world, perhaps her mother’s last words her only real legacy, "look under the floor board,"  walking while thinking, not looking where she was going she bumped into Father Brogan looking worried.