One of the men stopped working. He lifted his head up to the sky, the sun, as if somewhere up above was the answer to a long-unanswered question. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and looked out toward the road, to her car, to her. She wanted to let him know he was not alone. A small gesture, perhaps meaningless, but she raised her hand in the air anyway in the hope he would see, but by then he’d already moved away, disappearing back to his work with the other men.

II.

WHEN MIRA THOUGHT back, the trouble had started with Celine’s question, followed with Jesse’s smirk that said he didn’t believe her. “Don’t you know it’s the ghosts of slaves that roam that land?” Celine had asked them both. “Anyone at school will tell you. All that land is haunted.”

A Sunday afternoon with the three of them sitting outside on Mira’s front stoop eating lunch—dry Ramen, their fingers breaking the hard chunks, sprinkling the seasoning, popping pieces in their mouths; they finished off the hard crunch by licking their fingers clean, a salty lip smack. For dessert Fla-Vor-Ice freezer pops. Jesse had chosen strawberry, the ice pop leaving the rim of his mouth stained a delicious red. He brought the plastic opening to his lips and sucked the remaining juice. Mira bit chunks off her orange pop to let dissolve in her mouth.

“That all’s going to melt if you’re not quick enough,” Celine scolded. She’d finished hers first, gulping the sweet coldness down. She watched as Mira and Jesse finished theirs while fanning herself with a ripped page from a fashion magazine.

“I’ll just get another one,” Mira answered, and Celine shrugged.

The afternoon sun bore down. They’d been outside only a few minutes and were already sweating, their clothes damp from it, but the cold of the freezer pops helped to temporarily temper the heat.

“It’s so hot today. Maybe we should go back in,” Celine whined.

“It’s hot inside too,” Jesse muttered. “At least outside maybe a breeze will come around. I checked the weather earlier and it’s supposed to cool off soon. Maybe even rain.”