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  As Liddie pulled her nightgown over her head, she imagined Amelia doing that—though she didn’t exactly know what that was—with Fred. Bile rose in her throat, and she pulled the quilt up around herself, a protection from the idea of a man doing such things to her. Her thoughts turned to Maquoketa and sewing. As she saw her own future slipping away, disgust gave way to anger, embarrassment, and shame.

  From Liddie’s earliest memories, Amelia had been the one to bathe and dress her. Amelia had washed and braided Liddie’s hair, taught her to put it up when she went from a child’s short skirts to a woman’s long dresses. Amelia was more than her sister; Amelia was her friend. Amelia was always there.

  How this had happened was beyond her comprehension. She knew Amelia was disgraced. The family was disgraced. How could they look at their neighbors ever again without feeling shame?

  She thought of how other farmers came to Papa for advice on crops and cattle. How the school directors got his approval on work to be done on the schoolhouse.

  She thought of how much Mama enjoyed having the neighbor women over for quilting bees. She knew how proud Mama was that all of her children had finished eighth grade. When Amelia took over as teacher after she graduated, Mama had brought out her special cordial glasses. Even Liddie had a sip of corn wine.

  No one had needed to explain to Liddie that her behavior—or the behavior of any of the children in the family—would be above reproach. How could it happen that her sister was pregnant? Out of wedlock?

  When Amelia finally came to bed, Liddie pointedly rolled over onto her side, her back to her sister. She wanted Amelia to know that she was awake but that she was not going to speak with her. She pulled the covers over her ears and pretended not to hear her sister’s muffled sobs.

  Chapter 3

  Liddie set the breakfast table, making a point of not speaking to Amelia, who was in the kitchen frying eggs and sausages. Amelia looked as though she hadn’t slept all night. Liddie didn’t care.

  When G. W. came to the table, his face turned red.

  “Take that plate away, Liddie.” He pointed at Amelia’s place.

  “G. W., please,” Margretta said.

  “She’s still your daughter,” Kate said.

  “She will not eat at this table.”

  Liddie froze, her father’s anger shocking her into sympathy for her sister.

  Amelia stopped in the doorway. Her hands trembled, and Liddie thought she might drop the platter of eggs.

  “Do as I said, Liddie. Vern, get rid of that chair.”

  “Pa . . .” Vern said.

  “Not a word.” G. W.’s voice filled the room, driving out every other sound as he slapped his palm flat on the table.

  Liddie scooped up the plate and silverware and ran to the kitchen. Amelia followed, barely getting the platter set on the counter before she collapsed to the floor. For the first time that morning, Liddie met her sister’s eyes.

  “Take the eggs in, Liddie,” Amelia said.

  “But—”

  “Do it. Go.”

  Liddie picked up the platter and stepped around her sister.

  Her father pushed two eggs and four sausages onto his plate. He picked up his knife and fork but sat transfixed, staring at the wall above Margretta’s head.

  No one spoke a word through the whole meal. The only thing Liddie could think of was her sister on the kitchen floor. When G. W. left the table, the food on his plate was still untouched.

  For the rest of the day, Liddie’s skin prickled with the tension charging the air. Amelia sought refuge in the bedroom. Mama took to her bed with a headache. Papa and the boys went to the barn. Liddie eavesdropped as her aunt made the necessary phone call. It amazed her that Kate could make such a call with complete calm, saying nothing that allowed the operator or those listening on the party line to know about the tornado ripping apart their lives.

  By the end of the day, arrangements were made. Amelia would leave on the 2:00 p.m. train two days hence.

  Liddie grabbed the egg basket and headed for the barn. She was grateful for any task—even collecting eggs—that took her out of the house.

  “Here, chick, chick,” she called as she scattered handfuls of oats on the ground, and a dozen hens clucked at her feet. She’d hoped to entice all of the birds off their nests so she could gather eggs without a hassle. But the red hen wasn’t there. Sure enough, when she went into the barn, Liddie found the old hen solidly in place.

  Holding a corncob at arm’s length, she poked at the hen. “Shoo.” The hen pecked at the corncob and then abruptly pecked again, aiming for Liddie’s hand.

  “I hate you,” she shouted. Tears slipped from the corners of her eyes.

  “You’ll never get the eggs that way.”

  Liddie spun around. Joe was leaning against the door, his arms crossed, watching her with ill-concealed amusement.

  She scrubbed at her eyes with the heel of her hand. “I hate these chickens!”

  “Are you all right?” His smile faded.

  “Dust. That’s all.”

  “I thought it might be something else.”

  “You know?”

  He nodded.

  So that was how it would be. Soon everyone would know. “Nothing’s all right. Not anymore.”

  “I’m sad for her.”

  “Sad for her? Sad for her? I’m so mad at her—so mad I could just . . . spit!”

  Joe raised an eyebrow. “Spit?”

  “Are you laughing at me?”

  “I understand being upset, but why are you mad?”

  “Last night, Mama and Aunt Kate were going to convince Papa to let me work in Maquoketa. Now I’ll never get out of here. She’s ruined everything.”

  “I don’t understand why you’re so set on leaving.”

  “Why, to do things. See things. If I stay here”—Liddie’s gesture took in the entire farm—“it never changes. Collect eggs. Make bread. Do laundry. Milk the cow. Take orders from everyone. Every day. Over and over and over.”

  “You think that’s what your mama does? Take orders?”

  Liddie scuffed her toe in the fine dirt of the barn floor. “No. Not really. But taking orders is what I do. It doesn’t matter now, anyway. I’ll be here forever.” She looked up. “Don’t you want to get away? See the world? Do other things?”

  Joe didn’t hesitate. “No. This is what I want. A place of my own. Right here. Friends. Family. Land.”

  “It’s different for you. You’re a man, you can get away any time you want, so you don’t want to.”

  “You think that’s it?” He snorted. “What I’m downright certain of is that Amelia didn’t expect this to happen to her. And she didn’t do it to spite you.”

  “I just don’t understand how she could do this.”

  “Did you ask her?”

  “I don’t know if I’ll ever talk to her again.”

  He eyed the corncob. “Whatever you do, you shouldn’t take it out on the chicken.”

  Liddie flushed. “You wouldn’t be laughing if you had to do this every day. The corncob usually makes her move. But she’s not having any of it today.”

  Joe looked at the hen for a few seconds. Keeping eye contact with the bird, Joe clucked in soft tones as he walked up to the nest. He reached in above the wary hen and stroked her back with a light, firm hand. She didn’t peck at him. Instead, after a few strokes, the old hen relaxed her neck until her head rested on her plump breast. Joe eased his hand under her and brought out two eggs.

  “There you are.” He laid the warm eggs carefully into Liddie’s hands.

  “Why did she let you do that?”

  He shrugged. “If you want to go to Maquoketa, and your mama agrees, I expect G. W. will come around.” Joe slapped his gloves against his leg, releasing a cloud of dust. “I better get a mov
e on. The fence won’t get made with me standing here.”

  She was out the barn door when she heard him call after her. “She’s your sister, Liddie, and she’s going away. She needs you.”

  Joe’s words echoed in Liddie’s ears as she stood outside the half-closed bedroom door, watching Amelia pack. She felt as though she were observing a stranger.

  The previous night, as the girls changed into their nightgowns, Liddie had felt Amelia’s eyes on her, but she had refused to acknowledge her. They slid between the sheets as always.

  “Good night,” Amelia whispered, leaning over to kiss Liddie on the cheek.

  Liddie turned away. “Don’t.”

  She was angry, but even more, she was embarrassed that what she thought she knew about Amelia, what she thought she shared with her, had been a sham. She thought she and Amelia talked about everything, that they didn’t have any secrets.

  From the time boys had begun to call on her, Amelia had assessed each one, pointing out to Liddie both his good qualities and why, ultimately, he would not be a good match. In retrospect, Liddie realized she might have guessed there was something special about Fred. After their first date, Amelia never said a word to Liddie about him. Not a word about what she was doing.

  Now, as the hour approached to take Amelia to the train station, Liddie knew she should say something, yet each time she opened her mouth, her emotions boiled up and her jaw locked. She watched outside their bedroom door for a good five minutes before entering. When she did go in, the open dresser drawers, the stack of books, the picture frame holding their family portrait facedown on the bed hit her like a punch in the stomach.

  Amelia tucked a nightgown into the corner of a brown leather grip and began to fold the bright-blue scarf Liddie had given her last Christmas. When her sister finally looked up, her face drained of color, Liddie’s wall of anger crumbled.

  “Stop!” She pulled the scarf from Amelia’s hands. “I don’t understand.”

  “You’ll be better off when I’m gone.”

  Panic seized Liddie’s throat as the imminent reality of losing her sister sank in. “You can’t!” She clutched at her sister’s hand.

  Amelia pulled away, took the scarf from Liddie’s hand, and folded it into the suitcase. “You’d best go,” she said.

  “How could you, Amelia? I don’t understand. How could you have done this?”

  “I loved him. I thought he loved me.”

  “But you’re not married!”

  “I don’t need you to chastise me, too, Liddie.” Amelia sank onto the edge of the bed, resting one hand on her still-flat stomach. “I’ve made a mess of things.” Her voice cracked. “I broke Mama’s heart. Papa will never forgive me.”

  Liddie forced herself to step closer, made herself sit beside her sister. She put her hand over Amelia’s. A baby. It was so wonderful. And so shameful.

  “You’ll come back?”

  “You’re better off with me gone.” Amelia rolled onto her side, her back to Liddie, and sobbed.

  Liddie wanted to crawl up next to her sister, wrap her arms around her, and hold her, comforting Amelia as her sister had so often comforted her.

  But angry words fought to cross her lips. You made your bed. Now lie in it!

  In the end, she was neither that kind nor that cruel. She didn’t comfort her sister, nor did she berate her. She simply walked away.

  “If we’re all there, doesn’t it look like we’re happy about what she did?” Liddie asked that morning when she cornered her mother in the kitchen. “Doesn’t it say to everyone that what she did was all right?”

  “We don’t wash our dirty laundry in public,” Margretta responded as she drew hot water from the cookstove tank. “Now go put on your good dress.”

  “I don’t want to go.”

  Margretta looked at Liddie with red-rimmed eyes. “Not another word, Liddie. You’re going.”

  Frustrated, she whirled on her heel and headed for the stairs. “Well, she’s ruined everything. Everything,” Liddie said, knowing her mother could hear her. She dressed in the lightweight worsted crepe dress she’d made for herself, a dress she had anticipated wearing on the first day of an apprenticeship that she knew was never going to happen.

  Once Amelia said her good-byes to Kate and Joe, there was nothing else to say or do at home. Crowded shoulder to shoulder in the backseat of the buggy, Amelia, Vern, and Liddie covered the miles to the station in awkward silence. Margretta attempted conversation, a painful effort to re-create more pleasant times, but ultimately fell silent. They arrived more than an hour before the train was scheduled. After G. W. purchased the ticket, they all stood waiting for the train. The train that would remove their embarrassment from their midst, if not from their memory.

  Liddie stood apart from her family, keeping her eyes focused on the worn planks of the depot platform, wishing herself invisible. Her mother stood with her hand in the crook of Amelia’s elbow. Her father stared down the tracks as though he could will the train into existence. Only someone who knew him well would notice the twitch of his mustache and know it signaled a struggle to hold his emotions in check.

  Vern stood a step behind their father. Physically like G. W., Vern was strong enough to work a team of horses all day long. However, he showed none of their father’s social skills. He kept to the fringes at parties, steadfastly rejecting his sisters’ efforts to get him to dance even a two-step. Vern would take over the farm someday and no doubt get married, though Liddie presumed he’d actually have to talk to a girl to make that happen.

  Until recently, Amelia’s life path had been similarly clear. She would teach until she married, and then she would settle down to care for her husband and raise children. On a farm. It was the path Liddie knew her parents wanted for her, a path she hoped to avoid. But not as Amelia had done. Never as Amelia had done.

  The westbound train sounded its arrival with a blast of its whistle, and Liddie looked down the tracks. Not even a week ago, she had spent a blissful afternoon imagining her family gathered at the depot, laughing, chatting, wishing Liddie well as she prepared to board. So much could change so very quickly.

  The train whistle shrieked again. Absorbed in her own thoughts, she didn’t realize Amelia was standing beside her until she spoke.

  “Please, Liddie.” Amelia touched her arm. “I can’t leave and not say good-bye.”

  Unable to meet her sister’s eyes, Liddie stared at Amelia’s hand. Her earlier anger had faded. Now she felt foolish and embarrassed at her outburst.

  Amelia tried again. “I didn’t mean to spoil things for you. I’m so sorry.”

  The sorrow in Amelia’s voice ripped at Liddie’s heart, and she finally looked up. Soon her sister would be gone. She swallowed hard on the lump growing in her throat and bit her cheek to keep from crying when she saw the tears pooling in Amelia’s eyes.

  The wheels screeched as the huge steam engine braked, bringing the passenger cars to a stop beside the platform. A porter jumped out, set a stool by the first car, and helped passengers step down. Farther along, men opened the freight cars and set to loading and unloading baggage and mailbags.

  “It’s time,” G. W. said.

  Amelia threw her arms around Liddie and hugged her tight. “I love you, Liddie. Please forgive me.” Her voice cracked. Then she stepped away.

  Liddie would remember that moment for the rest of her life. She’d remember to her own shame that she didn’t hug her sister back or even say good-bye.

  Amelia went to her father, lifting a hand to touch him. “Papa?”

  He didn’t acknowledge her presence, and her hand hung suspended in midair until she finally let it drop.

  “Mrs. Taylor will meet you at the Des Moines station,” Margretta said. “I wrote it all down.” She slipped a paper into Amelia’s handbag and gave her oldest child a brief, hard hug. “You�
�d best go now,” she said, her voice rough.

  Amelia kissed her mother on the cheek and picked up the travel bag. One last time, she gazed at her father’s profile. As she passed Vern, Amelia touched the back of his hand with her fingertips. Liddie expected Vern to take no more note than their father, but as Amelia moved toward the train, Vern took the grip from her hand and walked with her, then handed the bag to the porter as she boarded. On the top step, Amelia half turned back toward them. She didn’t smile. She didn’t wave. She studied each of them, then continued into the car.

  Amelia took a window seat in the middle of the car on the platform side. She focused her eyes straight ahead and did not look their way again.

  G. W. took Margretta’s arm and steered her toward the buggy. Vern followed.

  Liddie continued to watch as the train began to move. Just before Amelia’s car left Liddie’s view, she saw a man sit down across from her sister.

  As the caboose disappeared in the distance, she wondered, Why couldn’t it be me getting away?

  Chapter 4

  For days after, no one spoke Amelia’s name. Her father’s jaw seemed permanently clenched. Each morning, her mother’s red eyes told Liddie she’d spent the night crying. Joe was cautious in his comments. Vern didn’t speak at all.

  Liddie had trouble sorting out her own emotions. Each night when she went to bed, she felt her sister’s absence acutely. Yet with the daylight, she was reminded that the future she’d hoped for herself was further out of her reach than ever.

  “Let it rest awhile,” Kate advised before she returned to Dubuque. “Everyone needs time to adjust.”

  “Aunt Kate, Mrs. Tinker won’t wait forever. She’ll get another girl.”

  “That can’t be helped.”

  “It’s my life, too.” Liddie stomped her foot.

  “Yes, it is. Now what are you going to do with it?”