The cow is the most beautiful Asia has ever seen. They name her Lady Parker and crowd about her in the barn, drinking glass after glass of warm, foamy milk. Then Rosalie, Asia, and John take turns at the churn. How long since they had butter? Cheese? A cow. A cow. My kingdom for a cow, Asia thinks. And yet, joyous as Asia is, contented and full for the first time in days, she cannot forget that the kingdom they nearly paid for this cow was John’s life. A world without John! She can’t even bear to think of it.

—

They live through the winter. Spring feels like a season of plenty, summer the same. John goes about his grim farm work, the harvests as bad as ever. Each year they fall further behind.

The leaves turn color. Another terrible winter looms.

xvi

But Edwin gets there first.

—

Word has gotten out. Edwin Booth is returned from the gold country. A rich man has come to town. Neighbors are already gathered, waiting on the front lawn, when his carriage arrives, chased down the lane by young men, some of whom were only babies when he left. He swings lightly from the carriage to the ground, and into the cheering crowd. The boys quarrel for the privilege of wrestling his heavy trunks into the parlor.

It’s been four years since Asia saw Edwin and though still boyish, he’s also completely transformed. He’s wearing a velvet cape pinned shut at the top with a brooch of diamonds and nuggets—a parting gift, he will tell them later, from the ladies of San Francisco. His boots are red with swirling designs stitched over the vamp and the uppers. With his dark skin, black curls, and exotic clothes, he looks like a prince from The Arabian Nights. Asia can see how shabby and tattered poor John looks beside him. She knows she looks the same. She’s suddenly shy, too awed by his magnificence to throw herself into his arms when he comes to hug her.

She sees the effort he makes to adjust his face as he greets Rosalie. Is Rosalie so altered? Asia can’t remember when Mother stopped telling Rosalie to stand up straight, but it was quite some time ago. One shoulder is now permanently higher than the other.

The crowd in the yard, half of them black and half of them white, show no sign of leaving. Edwin moves among them, clapping the ones he knows on their backs, shaking hands with those he doesn’t. He pays particular court to the little Hall girls, who dance about his legs and stand on his red toes. Laughter and babble and through it all, Edwin looking pleased but abashed, and running his hand through his hair. When he laughs, he throws his head back, a mannerism Asia doesn’t remember from before.