“Since when did you become a morning person?” my dad asks me at breakfast.
It’s Saturday morning and four hours ’til Momma and I head up to Lexington. The day is clear, the sun is shining, and I’ve got a skip in my step. Sure, I’ve got to work a little bit first, but whatever I make, my momma’s going to match.
“Since I get to go shopping,” I say, scarfing down my biscuits and gravy.
He smiles and downs the rest of his orange juice.
“Let’s go!” I say to Ben. “We’re burning daylight.”
Ben sticks his tongue out at me before finishing his milk. He’s annoyed. I would be annoyed with myself, too, if I weren’t so fired up. I’m thinking new jeans, new shoes, new tops, new everything! He’s thinking: Work sucks.
I hop on the back of my dad’s huge four-wheeler and Ben revs up his mini-ATV. We drive over the fields and the wind catches in my hair. I throw my arms back and face the sun. I feel like Leo in Titanic. ’Course, it only takes one pothole to snap me out of that little fantasy, and I hold on tight.
Up at the barn, we stomp through the dewy grass and meet the others: Luke, his dad, his sister, his four brothers, and us. This being a small field, we’ll be done before you know it. And even if we’re not, I’ll be done at eleven. Mrs. Foster unloads a couple of coolers and kisses Claire and each of her sons before climbing back into their old pickup. I love that. All tall and rail thin, each of them has to bend down to let her peck him on the forehead.
Everybody knows his or her place. The guys climb up into the rafters, Ben and another kid clean up around the barn, and Claire and I unload the trailer, passing the tobacco up.
“I’m so glad you’re out here today,” I tell her. It’s nice to have another girl around.
“Yeah, being a mom is no joke,” she huffs. “I left Ava with my mom today. I mean, I never thought I’d say this, but I miss working out here sometimes.”
I cock an eyebrow and give her one of the special looks I usually reserve for Momma. “You have officially lost your mind.”
We work steadily. Our breathing is labored, but we don’t stop talking. I tell her stories about school and she tells me about changing dirty diapers, and our tales are equally glum. I’ve always looked up to Claire. She looks a lot like her brothers—same sandy blond hair and bright blue eyes—except she’s got a few womanly curves here and there. She could be a model—could’ve been a model—but when she got pregnant her senior year life changed for her. Everything changed.
“You like working at the day care?” I ask.
“It’s cool,” she says. “I mean, I get paid and—”
She is cut off by the longest-sounding four-letter word I’ve ever heard in my life. The F word, the baddest bad-boy cuss word of all time, long and low and getting closer, as if time is standing still, followed by an empty-sounding thump and a scary crack. Then silence.
“Dad!” I hear Luke yell.
Claire and I hop off the trailer and run over to Mr. Foster, who is sprawled out on the floor of the barn, wincing in pain. Thud after thud registers on the trailer behind us as the men thunder down from the rafters.
“My leg!” Mr. Foster shouts. “I think I broke my damned leg!”
I back away from the crowd assembling around him. Mr. Foster’s right leg is bent out in a way that makes me a little nauseous. My dad is already on his cell phone, calling 911, and he motions for me to pull Ben away. I look at Luke, bent over with his brothers.
“I just passed it up!” I hear someone defend himself.
“The weight threw me off,” Luke’s dad says.
“You been drinking, Daddy?” one of the boys asks.
The silence says it all. Every blond head hunched around Mr. Foster hangs. Of course he’s been drinking. And it’s only eight thirty in the morning.
Luke stands up, puts his hands behind his head, and turns away.