What she was getting used to, in fact, was her growing sexuality, her passion, her needs and desires. Her Christian upbringing was confused along with the rest of her uprooted ideals, but the sight of Harry’s hard sweat-slicked body made her weak in the knees, and she would work twice as hard to purge the vision from her mind.

At night, they would lie in bed and talk of the coming winter, and as his voice droned on in the darkness, she would stare at the nothingness above the bed and dream of making love on the wooden floor in front of the stove. She would touch him, lightly rubbing her fingers across his back, and she would ache between her legs, the way saliva glands hurt with the first taste of sweetness. Usually she stroked him like this until she heard his soft snoring; then she would curl into herself and wait for morning, sometimes sleeping, sometimes not.

At the commencement of winter, Fern’s gift blossomed. And so did she.

They had worked hard all summer getting the farm ready for the cold weather. They had a late crop of vegetables, which were put up and safely stored in the underground pantry. The house and barn were freshly caulked and painted, hay was stockpiled, wood cut and stacked, stores of food set in.

The sky turned the color of the dusty roads on a Sunday afternoon, and after lunch Harry took her outside, wiped the sweat from his forehead, tipped his hat to the back of his head, and looked up. “Snow’s gonna fly hard, Fern. Tonight. Tomorrow for sure.”

Fern remembered waking up with an air of expectancy, looking out from her second-story bedroom and seeing the first snow quietly covering everything in sight. She smiled to herself, anticipating a welcome contrast from the dry summer, but a quick look at Harry’s worried face slammed her back to the here and now. This would be no winter for carefree ice skating on the pond at the park. This was living with the weather as you live with the soil and the water. This was life-or-death weather. Though the day was still hot, she shivered, as if a premonition slithered up her spine but didn’t quite make it to her mind.

“Gotta get the tractor bedded down,” Harry was saying. “You going to town today?”

Fern noticed the wind picking up, swirling bits of this and that, stinging her ankles. She thought of her winter checklist, and the things that had yet to be done. “Yes. Oh, yes, I have lots of things to be done.”

“Good. Go to Mac’s store and see if he can send a boy out to help me this afternoon. I’ve got to get that tractor jacked up.”