“You sure you want to do this?” Kevin looked sideways at me and I wondered what he saw. What story my scarf in August in North Carolina, my hair so black it swallowed the light, my increasingly alarming thinness, told him.

Probably nothing good. And frankly, probably a story far too close to the truth.

I am, after all, wearing the official costume of a woman on the run.

“I mean…you’re a kid, ain’t you?”

“No.” Childhood had blended right into adulthood for me, and there had been nothing in between. Like a rainbow that went from yellow right to indigo. “And I’m totally sure I want to do this.” I was used to physical labor at the farm. I liked it. And after a week on the road, I felt listless. Too in my head.

And my head was a shitty place to be.

“Suit yourself. Watch out for snakes.”

“What?” I squeaked.

“And bears.”

“You’re joking, right?”

He shrugged.

“That’s not funny, Kevin.”

“I don’t know, it kinda is.”

Kevin winked—which was weird in and of itself—before he lumbered off, leaving me unsure if he was joking or not.

For my own peace of mind I decided to go with joking. Physical labor—yes.

Snakes? No.

Bears? Hell no.

I traded my tennis shoes for the boots and slipped on the gloves. There was a box of black garbage bags and I tucked five of them in the back of my pants. I grabbed a shovel and rake and headed back over to the weed-and-garbage-filled field.

My feet slipped in the too big boots, but I was grateful for them when I stepped into the weeds and something squished underfoot and a wall of flies buzzed up and away.

The smell made me gag.

I pulled my scarf up over my nose. This is so gross.

But it was still better than what I’d left behind.

—

Back home, in the flatlands of Oklahoma, I’d been able to see for miles. And at the beginning of my marriage—not the very beginning, but when I realized that the chicken potpie incident wasn’t going to be a onetime thing—the openness seemed like protection.

Like a moat around me.

Hoyt couldn’t sneak up on me. I could be anywhere on the property, but I’d see the dust behind his truck rising up into the sky, long before I’d even see the truck. And in all that space, that open air, that blue sky with its towering clouds, my fear was like a radio signal that never bounced back. It just went and went and went—flying out over the prairie, fading away into silence.

And at some point during those days, at the beginning, anyway, I could empty myself of that fear. For just a few minutes. As if the dust and the work and the emptiness sucked it all from me.

It’s not like it was a huge transformative event. Like for a few minutes, I took off my clothes and sang Broadway tunes to the corn.

Hardly.

I just got to not be scared for a while.

And it was enough.

But here in Carolina, I was surrounded by a forest and insane amounts of kudzu vine. Which truthfully—as far as plants went—had to be the scariest plant. The way it climbed and grew over anything that stood still, preserving the shape of the thing underneath but killing it dead at the same time. Like a mummy plant.

So damn creepy.

There were strange animals in the forest. Strange bugs buzzing around my ears. Every noise made me jump and every shadow seemed to watch me.

Here, my fear bounced back at me tenfold.

Like I transmitted doubt and it came back as terror.

By the second hour of working, my entire body slick with sweat, I started to doubt if I’d gone far enough to get away from Hoyt. Because I was partially convinced he was watching me from the weeds around the watering hole.

“Hardly seems like a job for a girl,” a quiet voice said.

Wild, I turned, shovel over my head like a weapon.

“Whoa, there,” said an old man, lifting one arm up in the air. His other hand held a plate. “I take it back. It’s a perfect job for a girl.”

Heart thumping, I lowered the shovel. “Sorry,” I said, with the best smile I was capable of. “You startled me.”

“I can see that.” The man had a silver buzz cut and wore a pristine white tee shirt with a pair of jeans. On his forearm a tattoo snake twined its way around his elbow and an eagle was swooping down from his biceps, talons stretched to grab it.

“Here,” he said, holding out a plate toward me. “Watching you work made me hungry, so I figured you had to be starved.”

On the plate were two pieces of bread covered in mayonnaise and ragged slices of tomatoes, like they’d been cut with a spoon. The tomatoes were so red, so beautiful, they looked like gems. The juice like blood.

My stomach roared.

The old man’s lip twitched. “Go on,” he said pushing the plate toward me.

“I’m fine,” I said, squeezing my hand around the splintery wooden handle of the shovel. Hunger made me dizzy.

He shot me a puzzled look.

“Really,” I said. “Totally fine.”

“Well, I’ll leave it for you, then,” he said, setting down the old plastic plate on top of a boulder.

“You don’t need to—”

“I got about seven hundred pounds of tomatoes right now. I can’t eat them all myself.”

I had this half-clear, half-fuzzy memory of one of the last times Mom and I went to church, when it must have been getting obvious Mom was sick. The various circle groups and outreach ladies had unleashed an unprecedented wave of charity upon us. Tater-tot-covered casseroles, sheet cakes, a dozen kinds of chili, clothes, and blankets knit by hand—it all just rained down on us. So much that we couldn’t carry it all. There were hand squeezes and whispered, tearful promises to Mom that I would be looked after when she was gone.

I’d been relieved, delighted even. My fear of what would happen when Mom died was washed away in that flood of care. I had friends, I had community. I wasn’t totally alone. I didn’t need to lie awake at night scared, listening to Mom shuffle up and down the hallway, restless from the pain, and wonder what would happen to me.

Who would take care of me?

These people would!

Mom smiled at those friends, my potential new families, she nodded, made two trips to the car to get it all home, but once we were home and safe and alone, she went apeshit. Dumping all that free, delicious homemade food in the garbage.

We don’t need their pity, she’d said.

I do, I’d wanted to cry. I need their pity. And their chili!

We never went back to church after that and Mom died a few months later.

“Honestly, you’re doing me a favor,” the old man lied, but he did it without blinking, without smirking.

Oh, for God’s sake. Take the sandwich, I told myself, staring down at the juicy tomatoes resting on the bed of creamy mayonnaise. Wanting something doesn’t make it bad.

“Thank you,” I said. “I’ll eat it in a bit.”

I’d take the charity; I just wouldn’t eat it in front of him. Seemed reasonable.

He nodded as if accepting my terms. “How old are you, girl? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“Twenty-four.” Twenty-five in two months.

I waited for that “old soul” comment I used to get a lot. Old soul was code for a lot of things, and I figured most of them had nothing to do with my soul and more to do with growing up with my mother.

He nodded, saying nothing about my soul or age one way or another. “If I could offer a little advice, about the work?”

“Sure.”

“Start earlier. Out of the heat. Quit at noon. Ain’t nothing gonna come from working outside in August past noon except heatstroke. And drink more water.”