We have an old white house and a rust-red barn. Our white house is all wooden floors, arched windows, linens to wash. Our barn is where the sleeping machines are kept.

The rest of the town stands a few miles back from us and our land. We are isolated in this way. Some days, only my family can see me, which is my freedom — no new stares, no new disgust.

The Acres are worth money is what my parents say. Here is why: At the edge of our land is the Meat Quarry. There, meat is harvested from the tall walls of a red, fleshy canyon.

MY MOTHER AND I KEEP THE HOME ON weekends. My mother is like weather in that she changes daily. Each day, I make a report of her.

Today, my mother is focused and sharp, training me to clean. Everything must be white, pristine, diamond. Specks of dirt taunt her.

A bucket of lemons rests at my feet. To keep a home, one must have hands and skin of citrus.

“Now, do it how I do it,” she says. “You’re old enough for a knife now.”

I have seen it: Her back hunched over the sink, the brown of her hair glinting in the sunlight, the fat of her upper arms warbling, the sawing, then the halves between her fingers, yellow half-moons in her palms, rubbing lemon over white wall.

I hunch over the silver gut of the sink. I cut the lemons down the center, one by one, arms shivering against the knife, separating the small citrine hearts.

I run the yellow halves over the white walls until they glisten, until the house tangs with the flesh of the fruit, until the juice of the citrus runs into the gutters of my gnawed nail beds then stings.

EACH DAY, MY FATHER AND BROTHER PULL meat from the quarry to sell in town like my father’s father and his father before him. Their bodies disappear over the green grass of The Acres, their figures swallowed by the thin mouth of the long horizon.

I have never seen the Meat Quarry, so I must invent it over and over again in my mind: Giant red walls of flesh marbled with the electric white of fat.

“You’re not meant to be there,” my father says. “Some things, a woman should not see.”

Has my mother seen it? I do not know.

“Does the meat glisten and glitter?”

“Enough. You keep far from there,” my father says. “It’s not safe.”

He drinks his liquor after dinner, eyes going red. My mother’s fury hangs at the edge of the table, growing with each sip he takes.

“Haven’t you had enough?” she asks.

“What does the quarry smell like?” I ask.

“Enough again,” he says sharply. “Both of you, drop it.”

MY MOTHER SITS NEXT TO ME ON WICKER porch furniture. We have finished our cleaning for the day. Now, it is magazine time.