He took me in his arms, pressed my face to his shoulder with one hand.

“Carrie. Carrie. I wasnt wanting to hurt you. We should never have done what we done.”

“That’s easy to say now. You got what you wanted.” I pulled away from him. “This mean I wont never see you again?”

He shrugged. “We might get together again sometime. If the time’s right. I cant never say about nothing too far in advance. I’m picking the banjo in Inez next weekend. And the week after in Paintsville. Not to mention working my job. You see how my life is.”

He kissed me goodbye and left. I sat beside the table and wept. Aunt Becka spoke loudly in my ear. You see. Just like a man. Now look what you’ve done. You’re a fallen woman, and see where it has got you.

“Damn him,” I said. “Damn him, damn him, damn him.”

But I said it without conviction for I loved him. I believed in God and what Aunt Jane called His purposes. God had brought Lloyd to me, as surely as He placed us both in the mountains. I had freely given him, without a thought, what I had hoarded for years.

I could not bring myself to bathe, to wash away the smell of him. I dressed and walked through the July heat to the big house.

Miles questioned me over the next few weeks, saying I seemed “all mopey and dreamy eyed.”

“It’s that fellow, isn’t it?” he said once.

“Maybe it is,” I said. “Maybe I took a shine to him. But he aint interested in me, so that’s that.”

“Just as well. He’s nice enough, but you’ve got an education, and he doesn’t seem interested in one. You can do better than a coal miner.”

Twice I waited in the doctor’s office until I saw Lloyd leave the tipple, so that I would be sure to meet him on the way home. He was always friendly, and told me how good I looked. But he didn’t mention spending time with me.

Miles and I sat on the porch of the big house after supper and ate strawberry ice cream from the company store. A light rain fell and washed away the August heat.

“Between the store and the electric, I’m gitting spoiled living here,” I said. “But I still yet miss the Homeplace. I want to go visit pretty soon.”

“I miss the family,” Miles said, “and I miss the land. But I don’t miss working it.” He turned his spoon upside down and licked the back of it. “Carrie, do you understand why I came here?”

“I reckon so.”

“I could have gone a way off somewhere, made my mark in Cincinnati or Lexington or Charleston. But I didn’t want to leave these hills. That meant coal. Oh, I could have set up some kind of little business in Shelby or Justice. But to really be successful, I had to go into coal. You understand that, don’t you?”