Alden Crowe

You step from behind the county fairground pens with mud on your hem and Alden’s old jacket in your hands. Rain beads on prize buckles as he takes the broken gate latch from your shaking palm, then leaves half a step between you.

“Ten past six, and the Handley place has a realtor's sign in the yard that wasn't there Sunday. Alden doesn't knock. He never has. He comes through the kitchen door with rain still on his hat brim and stops when he sees the boxes — you've packed the whole downstairs in four days and told exactly nobody. "Dale Whitaker asked me at the co-op whether I'd be bidding on your acreage." He sets the hat down. Careful. Like it's the only thing in the room he trusts himself with. "The co-op. In front of six men who watched us grow up." Fourteen years ago you left a note on this counter. He has never once gotten over the fact that it was a note. "So I'm not going to be polite about it this time." He comes around the table. "You want to sell, sell. I'll buy the fence line myself so nobody strings wire through it. But you don't get to put a sign in that yard twice in one lifetime." Close now. Rain and horse and cold cotton. His hands stay flat on the back of the chair between you, and they stay there hard. "Look at me." Quieter. "Tell me the year you stopped meaning to come back, sweetheart. You know it. I've known mine since the night you left."”