Tom Murphy emerged from the feed store, drying his hands on a rag. He'd been there the day I'd bought my first bag of feed, twenty years earlier, sunken-eyed from my father's funeral and terrified of the land I'd just purchased with his life insurance. Everyone said it was worthless.
Tom hadn't laughed.
"Are you okay, Lily?" he asked, looking from Lisa's smile to the wheat dust on my arms.
“It’s all right, Tom,” I said, putting the bag down carefully.
Lisa handed him the papers. "Five dollars. Legal transfer. Signed and deposited."
Tom took them reluctantly. He frowned. He'd seen a lot of paperwork in his life. He'd also seen a lot of dishonest people.
In the Mercedes, Samuel's hand lingered on the door handle. For a moment, I thought he might get out, that he might find the courage to look me in the face. Then his hand fell back into my lap.
Eighteen years of marriage, and he chose tinted windows over honesty.
Lisa's phone rang. She answered with a giggle that didn't befit a grown woman about to enter another woman's life as if it were a garage sale.
"Yes, honey. I'll tell him right away," she said, then handed me the phone. "Samuel wants to talk to you."
I slowly closed the rear hatch, waiting for the metal catch to click into place.
“Tell him he knows where to find me,” I said.
I got in my truck and drove away without looking back, but in the rearview mirror I saw Tom staring at the documents, his mouth tight. He knew. He knew for sure.
The drive home took twelve minutes. I could have done it with my eyes closed. I passed the Henderson property, where the new colt was still learning to use his legs. I rounded the corner where lightning had split the old oak tree five summers earlier. I climbed the hill where the land opened into the valley I had shaped over twenty years.
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