She sat back down.

After a little while Raj glanced up and said, “I’ll help you around the farm.”

She still felt a little too emotional to respond.

After he had finished his breakfast, Raj said, “Are there snakes here? Someone at school told me there’s snakes in America.”

“There are,” she said, “but they’re more afraid of you than you are of them.”

He shook his head wildly, his eyes widening. “No, they aren’t. No, they aren’t.”

He looked so serious, she couldn’t help but smile.

She sighed. “I can’t keep this farm going,” she said. “It was Oliver’s thing, really. This is my house, and I guess I can lease the land, but things are going to be a little…tight. I actually make some money writing books—romantic literature for ladies.”

The boy placed his hands over his heart, fluttering his lush eyelashes, and she laughed.

“I’ll get a job,” he said. “I’ll clean the house. I very good cleaning wallah.”

She nodded. Now came the most difficult thing. “Rajiv, I understand you can’t help it, but look, I have three sets of sheets and we can work out a kind of rotation. I’m going to clean and dry out your mattress today.” The boy had closed up his body and was staring down at the table. She felt awful. “Anyway, we’ll sort it out; we just need to make sure you’re not sleeping on wet sheets. Is that okay?”

The boy nodded, his eyes still averted.

“Okay, Rajiv, would you mind emptying your plate into that bucket and then taking the scraps out and throwing them to the chickens?”

“Just throw them?”

“Yes, just throw them over the fence.”

“Onto the floor?”

She laughed. “The ground. Yes, they’ll eat them.”

Through the open back door, Ruth watched him throwing the scraps and backing fearfully away as the chickens came running. Then he put the bucket down and stared into the row of catalpas beside the barn. He had spotted something. As she went to see what it was, she heard a knock at the front door.

Annie had told Lew to meet her at Ruth’s. She wondered if he were stuck doing more flood preparation at his farm, though the waters had gone down.

Ruth opened the door and Annie handed her the pound cake. “My mom made it, but I did help.”

“I’m going to get as fat as a house.”

“You’ll never get fat, Miss Winters.” Annie felt a little guilty saying this. It had come to her because she had heard Mrs. Yost say to her mom that women like Ruth had to dedicate their lives to their figures so as to keep their men happy. Ruth fascinated Annie. She was drawn to her elegance and intelligence, provoked by her reserve.

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“Is that boy staying here?”

“Rajiv? Yes. He’s out back.”

Annie followed Ruth through the house. The Indian boy was staring into the swaying shadows beneath the catalpas.