My head swam with such heavy exhaustion that I wasn’t sure if I heard him right or not. I looked over and met Peg’s glassy red eyes. Swallowing down the grit and despondency, I whispered with very little conviction, “You don’t mean that.”

“Yes, I really do.” His voice held a heavy amount of dejection but no malice could be detected. I understood how he felt.

“We hate whatever is wrong with him, but we don’t hate Pa.” I stared at the dingy dog-eared copy of the Farmers’ Almanac and Pa’s open Bible beside it. The Bible was so well-worn that the spine no longer held the pages in tightly. A few verses in John were circled in blue ink, so heavily that the page had been torn from it.

Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.

I reached over and closed the Bible, trying not to think about all of Pa’s attempts of going on to the Father’s house. I grabbed a toothpick from the small tin canister we kept on the table and worked on digging some of the caked dirt from underneath my tender nails.

With my focus on my stained nails, I spoke quietly. “Mama once told me loving your family means you love them during their sunshine and even during their thunderstorms.”

Peg grunted. “I’d agree with that if Pa’s thunderstorms weren’t more like tornadoes.”

I sighed, wiping the sprinkling of dirt onto my palm and then tossing it and the toothpick in the trash. My body was too sore to return to sitting, so I braced my elbows on the back of the chair. “Yeah, but that’s when he needs us the most.”

“Sure, Ox, but what about us?” Fear and hurt inflamed his eyes. “What happens when his tornado levels us? Ain’t gonna be no coming back from that.”

“What other choice do we have?” My mind screamed in frustration as loudly as my body screamed in pain.

“I’m so sick of it!” Peg flung his hands in the air, much like I wanted to do, but that was never an option for me.