My hand flew to my mouth. My eyes saw it but my mind spun in disbelieving circles. The closer they came out of the pines and into the field and toward the grass, the more real it became. Fern, Uncle Darnell, Mr. Lucas, Big Ma, and Ma Charles came out to the porch to see the commotion. I took off running to the pines. I ran to Miss Trotter, JimmyTrotter, Sophie, and Butter. The sight of them sent me racing on the inside! Miss Trotter on foot, holding on to the cane Ma Charles had given her. JimmyTrotter leading the cows. Miss Trotter’s wooden chair strapped to Sophie’s back. What a sight! What a sight! I jumped up as I ran. I was the first to get there, winded, hugging, and crying. So glad to see them. So glad. It was the only good thing that had happened this day.
“Miss Trotter! Miss Trotter! You’re here! You’re here! At last!”
“As sure as you’re born,” Miss Trotter said. “As sure as you’re born.” She had a grip on that cane in one hand and the picture of her parents in the other. Both she and JimmyTrotter carried knapsacks on their backs, his bigger than hers, but it looked like they carried all that they had left. Uncle Darnell and I helped them out of their bags and took them. Miss Trotter was winded after having walked the distance, and her skirt was wet from about her knee to her feet. Fern petted Sophie and Butter and told them not to be afraid of Caleb. Caleb kept up his dog song. Big Ma praised the Lord and started to fuss over Miss Trotter. Mr. Lucas took a rope from JimmyTrotter and led the cows up to the house.
“You’re wet, Auntie,” Big Ma said. “You’ll catch your death.”
“Death ain’t caught me by the ankle yet,” Miss Trotter said, but she was shivering. “Guess I keep right on stepping.”
“The tornado destroyed the walkway so we went through the water,” JimmyTrotter said. “Had to go all the way down to the shallows. Cows didn’t like it much, but we’re here.” And Miss Trotter started to hum a song I knew: “Wading in the Water.”
By this time Ma Charles was making her way down to us. Miss Trotter stopped humming and fussing once she caught sight of her ambling toward us all. Big Ma fussed at Mr. Lucas to “help Ma,” and Ma Charles refused Mr. Lucas’s hand when he tried to help her. I figured she didn’t want her sister to see she wasn’t as steady as she once was.
Sophie mooed, which sparked Butter mooing, and Caleb had never quite stopped crying his dog song. It just got louder. But not one of us spoke a word. In fact, Big Ma placed her hand over Mr. Lucas’s lips to keep him from speaking. Then Miss Trotter, digging that cane in the ground with each step, made her way to Ma Charles.
“Sister,” one called out.
“Sister,” the other called out.
JimmyTrotter described everything. How the tornado came their way and took down half of the barn and most of the house. That they had only two minutes to get to the crawl space under the house and that Miss Trotter wouldn’t go without Mama and Papa so JimmyTrotter had to get the photograph from the mantel.
“It’s all just kindling,” Miss Trotter said. “’Cept for Papa’s chair. Tornado threw it good, but JimmyTrotter found it up a tree.”
“I didn’t think I’d get it down, but here it is.”
Mr. Lucas offered to take a look at it and make sure it was sturdy but Miss Trotter wouldn’t let him touch her father’s chair.
“House shaking on top of us, this way and that,” Miss Trotter said. “The wind was having its way. Wasn’t nothing we could do but pray.”
“Prayer works,” Ma Charles said.
“Didn’t I say don’t go poking in the sky?”
“Through God’s heavens,” Ma Charles said. “You must have heard me saying it. Tell ’em,” Ma Charles said to me. It seemed the first time anyone had said anything at all to me. All I could do was nod my head yes and remember that I still had to face my father. In the middle of this one good thing, my belly started to ache.
“I knew it was trouble when I felt that air, sister.”
“Cold here,” Ma Charles said.
“And heat stirring there,” the other finished. “It’s all that stirring up. Sending men into space and hurling them back down. Poking holes where they need not poke holes.”
“Electric storm is the ma and pa,” one said.
“And the tornado is its wayward child,” the other said.
“There wasn’t a finer teacher than Miss Rice.”
“Surely and truly,” the other said.
“It’s a wonder we still have Sophie and Butter,” JimmyTrotter said. “You wouldn’t know the barn to see it.”
“What barn? Just a pile of sticks. House too. Kindling.”
“Like the henhouse!” Fern cried.
Everyone spoke on about the tornado. Things brought down. Some homes standing. Some split apart into nothingness. But I stayed silent, like I didn’t have a right to the family sounds. I was at the table but I was watching. On the outside.
“What is a barn, or a henhouse?” Miss Trotter said. “What are two cows? I’d give those cows and more to see my sister with all her greats.”
And then they began to pray for Vonetta. Moan for her. Cry for her.
“My line had sons. Nothing but sons,” Miss Trotter said. “It was all we could do to keep the Trotter name going for Papa.”
Then Ma Charles said, “My line has daughters. The names add on, but we keep the bloodline going.”
“I’ve got—” Miss Trotter started.
“Each other,” Big Ma said, before they could get a squabble started.
One said, “Sister.”
The other said, “Sister.”
Things went well between them until one said, “Mrs. Hazzard.”
Then the other said, “Massa Charles’s property,” and I thought they would never stop.
Big Ma said, “You two are worse than those three ever were.”
But there were only two of us now. Two. Big Ma started to cry. And then Fern and I started. Mr. Lucas said, “Come on, Ophelia. I’ll take you to your room. You need to rest.”
Then Ma Charles said, “You stay here, son. Where I can see you.”
And Miss Trotter said, “Young folk.”
And my great-grandmother agreed. “Young’ns.”