“Help himself to the money, more like,” my mama had muttered when we’d devised this part of the plan. But we couldn’t see a good way around it. The money was the way to keep Land quiet. A little windfall and no talk-of-the-town embarrassment about how his deputy had been putting one over on him all this time. Of course, I had no doubt Mama had lightened the stash while I was gone. But I didn’t want any part of it. Every dollar stained with Junie’s blood.

Even knowing my mama, I expected her to say something. To ask about Cal’s last moments or express some kind of pain. But she didn’t. She finished her beer and then led me inside for a shower. When I was cleaned up, dressed in a pair of her jeans and one of her faded T-shirts, I took the bag of money and paused at the screen door. The air was warmer than it had been only a week ago, summer barreling toward us fast as a runaway train. Sweat and stagnant air and legs pockmarked with mosquito bites just over the horizon. In a blink, autumn, leaves turning gold and amber, scent of wood smoke in the air. And then winter, ice on the roads and bitter chill sneaking under my door at night. The seasons would keep on passing, the days and weeks and months rolling on, taking me further and further from my daughter. Until one day, sooner than I could comprehend, I would have lived with her absence longer than her presence. Her life a brief, shining light fading into shadow.

My mama stopped me at the door, laid a cold hand on my cheek. Her eyes were clear, glowing. She was proud of me, I realized with a start. Maybe for the first and only time in my life. For doing a hard thing well. For doing an awful thing easily.

“You my daughter again?” she asked, voice raspy.

“Yeah, Mama,” I said, because it was the truth. And because sometimes you had to pick your poison. Weigh all the available options and choose the one that killed you least. Take a long, honest look at yourself and own the darkness that lived inside. “I’m your daughter. Always.”

I opened the door and stepped out into the night.

THE BEGINNING

Somehow, she hadn’t thought her daughter would be this small. She’d seen baby girls all her life, boys, too. Women birthed them like puppies around here. First one barely walking before the next one came along. But when they belonged to other people, they seemed sturdier, less fragile. This one in her arms, her daughter, looked delicate as glass.

The baby snuffled a little, burrowing against her chest, seeking. She had a sudden urge to pinch her daughter, show her, right from the start, that the world was full of ugly things. That way her daughter wouldn’t be surprised later, wouldn’t be weak, expecting the world to do her any favors. Trying, in the best way she knew how, to teach her daughter something worth learning.