They are waiting for her out behind the shed, side by side on the ground, their backs to the wall and their skinny bare legs outstretched. They look up at her, their eyes four white saucers in the light of the rising moon.
Ora squats down before them, opens her hand. On her palm rest two orange-brown candies wrapped in crisp clear paper. The boys look at the candies, and then at Ora, skeptical, uncertain.
“Chicken Bones,” she says. She thrusts her hand forward. “Go on, try them.”
The first boy takes a candy, looks at it, smells it.
“Well, go on, unwrap it. You can’t rightly smell it through the cellophane,” Ora urges.
The boy untwists the wrapper, holds the candy pinched between his fingers, as if it were some biting critter.
“Well, it’s not gonna hurt you!” Ora laughs. “You like peanut butter?”
The boy nods.
“And you like coconut?”
The boy shrugs. “Ain’t had it.”
“It’s good. And this here’s just a whole bunch of peanut butter all rolled up with coconut.”
The boy examines the candy. “Ain’t a bone, then?” he asks.
“A bone!” Ora laughs again. “No wonder you didn’t want to eat it! No, that’s just what they’re called. Chicken Bones. Looks kind of like a bone, right? But not a bit of bone in there. Just peanut and coconut, like I said.”
The boy puts it into his mouth and chews.
“Good?”
He nods. “Crunchy,” he says, through his mouthful.
Ora extends her palm to the other boy, the smaller one, who takes the remaining piece of candy from her with the furtive quickness of a squirrel. He opens it rapidly and puts it into his mouth, watching Ora nervously all the while.
“Good, right?” she asks him.
He nods, his eyes wide as he chews.
“That’s even better than that caramel thing,” the first boy says. “That’s good!”
Ora nods. “Thought y’all would like them,” she says. “They’re my boy’s favorite, too.”
The first boy looks both curious and surprised. “You got a boy in there?” he asks, gesturing toward the station.
Ora shakes her head. “Nah, not in there,” she says, and she can feel her smile fading. She looks off across the field for a moment, then returns her gaze to the boy. “My boy’s gone off to the war,” she says.
The boy looks at her solemnly. “Ain’t a boy, then,” he says. “Not like me.”
“Not like you,” Ora agrees. “But still a boy to me.” She rests her elbows on her knees, squatting before them. “Your mamas know where y’all are?” she asks.
The boys glance at each other.
“I’m guessing that means no.”
The smaller boy pulls his knees in to his chest, looks at the ground. The older boy looks Ora in the eye. “No ma’am,” he admits. “Reckon they don’t.”
Ora’s knees pop as she stands. “Look,” she says. “Seems to me y’all best get home before it’s full dark, you hear?”
“Yes ma’am.” The older boy gets to his feet, reaches down, and pulls the smaller boy up. He looks at Ora impishly, emboldened. “You got any more those chicken candies?”
Ora puts her hands on her hips. “Well, now,” she says. “Just maybe I do. But look,” she says, reaching into her pocket for two more of the candies. “Too much candy in a day’s bad for your teeth. Rot right out of your head. I’ll send you each home with another, but you got to promise to save it for tomorrow.” She looks from one boy to the other, back and forth. “Promise?”
They nod.
She puts one candy into each boy’s hand. “Let me ask y’all something before you go.”
They look up at her expectantly, waiting, but it’s too much to put into words, the thing she wants to ask. “Never mind,” she says. “I just hope we can be friends. That y’all won’t stay away.”
And though they nod before they go, once they’ve vanished in the dimming rows of cotton, Ora feels more alone than ever.