Chapter 5

In autumn, men came out from town.

They said the township wanted to survey all the land around here, some kind of registration and record-keeping.

That was official business, fair enough. I didn't think much of it.

But a few days later, word started going around the village——

This survey, someone had their eye on the manless households in the childless farm village. Talk of edge plots, ownerless land, things that needed to be redrawn and reassigned.

The three and a half acres in Carla Gray's name sat in a good spot, up against a small irrigation ditch. Prime watered ground.

Someone wanted it.

The one who came was a land renter from town, with two men to back him up. He came straight to the door, and his words weren't pleasant. Said the deed on this land was too old, said the registration had problems.

I was in the yard. When I heard that, I stood up.

I'm not a man of many words, but some things you have to stand up for, no matter how little you say.

I faced off with those men at the village entrance for a good half hour, and I gave as good as I got.

At the end the land renter clapped his hands and said something snide, and I couldn't hold it in. I went at him.

There was shoving. Something cut the back of my hand, opened a gash, blood seeping out.

But those men left in the end.

The land business was tabled, for now.

I came back into the yard, and Carla was already waiting at the door.

When she saw my hand, she pulled me inside, not a word out of her, and found cotton to clean it.

Halfway through cleaning it, she stopped.

I thought she was going to say something. I looked up at her.

She kept her head down, quiet for a moment, then slowly said:

"My husband said this day would come."

I didn't move.

"He said……"

She paused.

"He said when the time came, you'd know what to do."

When I heard that, something in my head skipped a beat.

"He meant me?"

"He'd met me?"

She didn't answer. She went on with the medicine, wound the gauze, tied it off.

Then she stood, walked to the bed, and bent to lift the pillow.

There was something under it.

A cloth bundle.

Dark-blue homespun, folded neat, the four corners sewn shut with thread.

By the look of it, it had been there a good while. The color had faded, but the stitching still held.

She carried the bundle over and put it in my hands.

Solemn, like she was handing over something that mattered.

"Before he passed, he gave this to me."

She said:

"Told me, when I found a new husband, to give it to him."

"Told me to wait until this man had passed the test, then give it."

I held the bundle in my hands and didn't open it right away.

I asked her:

"This test he talked about——what is it?"

She looked at me a while, then said:

"I don't know. He never said."

"But I think today was enough."

I bent my head, felt around the bundle for a loose thread end, found the seam, and slowly worked it open.

The bundle came apart.

Inside was a folded sheet of paper, and pressed beside it a small thing—a seal, wooden, carved with words. I leaned in close to look——

Her husband's name.

And a place.

I unfolded the paper. It was handwritten, and I already knew the hand——

the same writing as on the slips stuck to the jars by the stove, fine and close, neat.

I read it word by word.

Halfway through, my hands started to shake.