I looked at Dad. He had tears in his eyes, too. I let go of Mom and went to him, my hands limp by my sides. He hugged me, his rib cage bony under my shoulders. Behind him, I could see Ruth glowering.

It was only a few weeks after that that Hal Nightingale showed up in our lives. He was fixing a broken fence with Dad, and Mom told Ruth and me to bring them sandwiches and a jug of iced tea.

“All that’s for me?” Hal said, taking off his cowboy hat and wiping his forehead with the back of his sleeve. He had a deep tan and crinkles around his eyes, like he’d spent a lot of his life squinting into the sun.

“Hal, these are my daughters,” Dad said. He took a sandwich from the plate and ate half of it in one bite. “Don’t talk to them.”

Ruth and I headed back to the house, but Ruth kept turning around to see if Hal’s eyes were still on her.

“Does he work hard?” she asked Dad that night over dinner. He was chewing and stared at Ruth until he swallowed.

“No. He’s a layabout. And he’s temporary. He’ll be gone the second I find a decent worker. Why are you asking?”

She shrugged, looking down at her plate instead of at him.

“What about that other boy?” Mom asked. “That Tommy kid you hired.”

“He’s green, but he’s good,” Dad said. He put down his fork and pointed a thick finger at Ruth. “That’s a boy to ask questions about.”

Ruth snorted into her glass of milk.

It didn’t take long for Hal and Ruth to connect, probably because it was the one thing that my father had forbidden. Dad was right about Hal: he was good for nothing, just a drifter who got by on fake charm.

Ruth secretly met Hal most nights, his Plymouth Duster parked fifty feet down the grid road where it bent to the left, and the two of them would sit on the hood, passing a whiskey bottle or a joint back and forth. Or so I heard from Tommy Gunnarsson.

The first time Tommy ever spoke to me, I was sitting alone on the top step of the porch, watching the wind sift the trees. He was just coming in from tying hay bales out in the fields. He had a streak of dirt across one collarbone and his blond hair was dusty but tidily cut.

“How’s it going?” he asked.

“Okay.”

“I’m Tommy.” He offered me his hand to shake.

“I know who you are,” I said. His fingers were strong and confident.

He lifted the lid of his lunch box and glanced at me. Then he pulled out a bent dandelion and handed it to me. “I got you this.”