“Maybe something spooked them,” said Lady Mae as she sat down at the table.

“Maybe.”

Her mother scraped the bottom of the iron pan, loosening the blackened bits that were her daughter’s favorite. The eggs popped and sizzled in the fat.

Lady Mae felt her stomach turn and twist. The nervousness crept up her legs and arms until her head was hot, until her throat tightened and her palms sweat. She knew her mother had worries, but she never spoke of them, and there she was in the smoky kitchen, her back to her daughter, letting the words tumble from her mouth. It was one thing to worry aloud when her daughter came home beaten and tormented; it was another to do so in the stillness of the morning when they were safe behind the walls of their shack.

“You think someone could’ve gotten in?” Lady Mae chose her words wisely. It was not all that she wished to ask her mother, but she did not know how to ask otherwise. You didn’t want this neither did you, Mama?

“Maybe tried to, maybe not. You just keep a watchful eye; you hear?”

“Aye,” she said softly.

Her mother wanted to say more. Lady Mae could see it in her small shoulders, in how her hair was not pinned up neatly, the frizzy curls peeking out from under her handkerchief. Maybe her mother knew Lady Mae was staring at her. Perhaps she felt her daughter’s eyes on the back of her sweaty neck.

“Mama, is there something else that—”

“Look at you!” She quickly turned around, dripping spoon in hand. She thrust her hands toward her daughter’s bruised face, splattering the floor and the cupboards with the red juice. “What more has got to happen? They could’ve killed you.”

“But they didn’t.”

“Not this time. But each time I leave you—it’s in my mind to—”

She took a deep breath and put the spoon back in the pot. She began ladling the beans hurriedly, dumping them onto the metal plates before going back and scooping out the fried eggs, slapping them on top of the beans. When the plates were filled, she lifted her arm and put her forehead in the crook of it; the day was nearly unbearable already.

“Lady Mae.” She put her arm down and blotted her forehead with a rag. “You’re getting older, getting ready to take over for me. Whole town knows it. Seems to always go this way—did for me as well. The residents, well, they get to thinking that the eve of an inheritance be the best time to make a fuss, try to change things. I don’t know—maybe some think if they stood in the way they could stop atonements once and for all.”

“What do they think would happen then? If there were no atonements?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. I suppose,” she said quietly as she put the lid back on the bean pot, “that some think we’d all learn a little forgiveness. So I’ve heard, anyways. I don’t know. Maybe they’re right.”