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As she neared the ht in the dried branches of the fallen trees, dirt caked in his openinto the hard, dry earth to bury hioodbye

With a sigh, she walked back to the house, got into bed The e for her alone, even if she spread her ars wide She folded her ar washed and readied for burial, and stared up at the dusty ceiling

All those years, all those prayers, all her hope that at last, someday, she would be loved, that her husband would turn to her and see her and love what he saw … gone

Her parents had been right about her all along

ELEVEN

Loreda knew she couldn’t bla them, or not entirely That was the sad, sorry truth she’d coht

Daddy had left them all Once she’d seen that fact, she couldn’t unsee it Daddy had filled Loreda’s head with dreams and told her he loved her, but in the end, he’d left her and walked away

It made her feel hopeless for the first time in her life

When she got up the nextand saw the blue sky outside her , she dressed in the same dirty clothes she’d run away in and didn’t bother to brush her hair or teeth What was the point? She was never going to get off this farm and if she didn’t, who cared what she looked like?

She found Grandma Rose in the kitchen, with a breakfast of crea on the stove Grandma looked … clenched There was no other word for it She kept talking to herself in Italian, a language she refused to teach her grandchildren because she wanted them to be Americans

Ant shuffled into the kitchen, kicking through the inch of dirt that covered the floor, and Loreda pulled out a chair for him at the oilcloth-draped table, where the bowls sat upside down at their places, covered in more dirt

Loreda turned the bowls over and wiped them out, then sat down beside her brother, whose hunched shoulders er as he ate cereal so tasteless that even cream and butter couldn’t make it

palatable

Grandpa walked into the kitchen, buckling his tattered, patched overalls “Coffee sood, Rose” He tousled Ant’s dirty hair

Ant started to cry It ended in a hacking cough Loreda reached out to hold his hand She felt like crying, too