This time she offered no resistance when Jimmy gently lifted her to her feet and dusted off her clothes. She stood still at first, her brow covered with sweat, though the air was frigid. Taking her first step like a calf trying out new legs, slowly, more and more confidently, she walked to the car.

“Just old,” she finally mumbled to herself. “Just old.”

“You need any help getting in, Aunt Ruth?”

Ignoring Jimmy, she slid her cane onto the floor of the backseat first, and holding onto the door frame as though a mighty wind might come along and snatch her away, she eased into the car, head first. Sitting, she pulled her legs in with great effort. Once in, puffing and wheezing and wiping away the sweat on her forehead, she impatiently motioned for Jimmy to close the door.

Without saying a word, Jimmy got into the car, closed the door, and started down the dirt road.

“Cold today, ain’t it?” Zeke yawned.

“Yes, but the weatherman says it should warm up some. Said it’s going to rain too.”

Ruth grunted. She stared out over the empty fields as the car drove past, her hands folded like heavy rags in her lap.

A flock of black birds with red-tipped wings covered a field to the left. When the car passed they rose, as one, squawking and chirping, into the air, a sheer black cloth caught up in the wind, the tips of their wings crimson flashes. The black cloud sailed up and over the road, over the car, into the wood on the other side, fitting onto the tree limbs like black Christmas ornaments.

“Ain’t gone rain. It’s gone snow.”

“You think it will, Aunt Ruth?”

“Ruth,” Zeke glanced back at her and clicked his mouth. “You know it ain’t gone snow in no December.”

Ruth made her own clicking sound. “‘Think.’ Think? Boy, in all my ninety-some years, I spect I can tell when it’s gone snow or no. You see a sky like it is, and then on top of that see a swarm of them red-tipped blackbirds on the ground like that—You just wait and see. Besides. I feels it in my bones.” She turned and looked out the window.

“Lord, Ruth, you make it sound like you know everything once you pass ninety.”

“Well, you just get to ninety and see for yourself.”

“I ain’t got but six years.”

In a short while they passed a few cars lined up on the road, near the entrance to a driveway. Yet, more cars were in the driveway and in the yard of the white, A-framed house. People were milling all about the yard.

Smoke rose off from the side of the house. Men congregated out near the barn; women stood around under the shed a few yards from the house.