Inside the laying boxes were five warm brown eggs, two speckled and three single-hued. One of the hens was setting, and I didn’t bother her, for there might soon be tiny yellow-brown chicks hatching from her pile. I wanted to sit in the sun and watch her, eager to see the chicks emerge sticky-feathered and scrawny pink from their fragile shells, skin wrinkled with newness, but I knew Mrs Jackson was waiting inside. For the first time since I’d arrived the truth of what Roy’s condition meant hit me. There would be no small wrinkled pink babies to hold, no children to call inside when it grew dark, to hold to my chest when they woke in the night. It winded me, literally took my breath away, and I had to stand there in the enclosure, the rooster watching me out of one beady eye, waiting to be able to move again. After a few minutes I gathered myself and left, latching the gate behind me, holding the basket close so the eggs wouldn’t jostle as I walked into the dim kitchen.

‘Took you long enough,’ Mrs Jackson said. ‘You’re not scared of that rooster, are you?’

‘No, I thought maybe I saw a chick coming, from the one setting on her eggs.’ I looked over to where I had left the jar with the wilted violets. It was gone.

‘Oh, her. Broody, I’ll wager. She’s old enough for the pot, that one.’

‘Will I go fetch her eggs then?’

‘Leave her be. Now crack four in that there bowl and whisk them until they’re pale.’

I did as she said, feeling the thin membrane inside each brittle shell tear from my thumb’s pressure. The wet glistening innards fell into the bowl. Eggs made me feel queasy: the sliminess, the little red blotch of blood sometimes or the snot-like whitish trail, the chicken that had never quite been. I threw away the shells and began to whisk. The small blood specks and white trails disappeared as the liquid became pale yellow, frothy. I would do the same, I decided. Beat out my inconsistencies. Make myself part of this world. One day I’d fit, surely. One day I’d slide into place.

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