There was another time, when we took a weekend trip to Pensacola to swim in the ocean. In the hotel afterward, Mom again a few beers in, holding a sleeping Murphy in her lap.

“I used to love swimming,” she said.

“Back at the Farm?” I said.

Mom nodded.

“I’d strip off naked—what? I was like twelve, it was fine—and I’d go flop in the lake while Mother laughed at us. We’d snatch cattails out of the ground, get dragonflies to land on our fingers, float with the long-legged frogs bounding around on lily pads, same as in a cartoon.”

“Can I see it sometime?” I said. “The lake and everything?”

“Not if I can help it,” said Mom.

Just like that, the conversation was over.

Like I said, Mom almost never brought up the Farm. But when she did, all the memories seemed good, impossible and lovely and ideal, as if she’d grown up in some kind of dream-world fairyland. I wondered what had gone on between her and my grandmother that had ruined everything for her. I had a lot of questions about the Farm.

You could say I was anxious to see it for myself.

It had stopped raining now, and the sun was just beginning to cut through the clouds. We drove on, the sunlight glinting high overhead, the trees catching the light and holding it close, shimmering with it, whispering some kind of promise, or maybe a warning, as we sped closer and closer to the Farm, to whatever it was that awaited us.

There was barely even a sign for Benign, Louisiana. Just a bullet-holed green thing half-dangling from a rusted metal pole. We got lost about twenty times on the way—my phone was basically useless so far out in the country—but finally we found it. Benign was all huge lots with tiny houses on them, most of which looked fallen-in and abandoned. Stray cats lounged everywhere, wise and aloof, glittery eyes watching as we drove slowly by. We stopped at the first nonresidential building we could find, a sort of hybrid gas station, post office, and lunch counter. Two old men sat at picnic tables in the shade, sipping something out of Styrofoam cups. A deep-tanned woman with a poofy gray ponytail sucked a cigarette and glared at me out of the corner of her eye.

“You listen up, Benny,” said one of the men, a wild fringe of white hair spilling out from under his cap. “All folks ever do is talk, talk, talk about time. Time this and time that. Times change, ain’t it a shame, time don’t change fast enough. Dammit, Benny, I’m sick of hearing about time.”

“Hi there,” said Murphy.

The two men looked up at us as if noticing us for the first time.

“We’re trying to find Mena Sanford’s place,” I said.

“Y’all from Hollywood?” said the guy with the white hair.

“Mississippi,” I said. “Why?”