We get the milking done, and the tank truck comes. We watch the guy hook up, and then Angel and Grimshaw and I go up to the haymow to throw down hay for the heifers. When that’s done, we lie on bales and look at the cobwebs up in the rafters.

“Wow,” I sigh. “I can’t believe her dad does that every day.”

“Twice a day,” says Angel. She takes off her leather work gloves and studies the damage to her fingernails. “We have to do it again later on.”

At that moment, the big sliding doors to the outside open. Rack creeps into view and sits carefully on a bale of hay next to us. I’ve never seen anyone look so bad. Her face is gray and creased. Her eyes are puffy, and it looks like she burst a blood vessel in one of them. She’s carrying a big bag of pretzels. She tries to open the bag, but it’s like she’s too weak. She gives up, and she hands it to me.

“I do it, too, you know,” she says. “Out here at a quarter to five in the morning.”

I open the bag and hand her back the pretzels. “Even on school days?”

“Yup, before I come to get you guys. But my brothers really want my dad to sell.”

“They don’t want to come back and farm?”

“Hell, no. Allen wants to make a million bucks by the time he’s twenty-five so he can retire and focus on his guitar. You don’t do that farming.”

We crunch pretzels in silence. The haymow is peaceful. Above us, the pigeons flutter and coo. It doesn’t take us long to eat the whole bag. Angel leaves and comes back with a big jug of warm Coke, which we pass around and drink out of the bottle. We hear a car pull up outside. The Mizeraks’ collie dog starts barking. A car door slams.

“Oh, please God.” Rack stands up and puts her hand over her mouth. “Tell me it’s not my parents. This place is so trashed.”

“You should see it inside,” Angel whispers to us. “It looks like a bomb went off. There’s frozen clothes outside stuck to the patio.” Then more vehicles pull up and we hear more car doors slamming, and voices. Angel and Grimshaw clamber up a wall of hay bales and rub a clear spot in the glass of a small, dusty window.

“It’s the football team!” they call down.

Rack looks happy. “Junior probably told them to come and clean up.”

Is he there? Eagerness is all over her face, but she doesn’t ask the question. And they don’t tell her.

ten

AFTER HOMECOMING, EVERYTHING CHANGES.