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Lost in the Cornfield, She Bought an Abandoned Farmhouse—What Was Inside Changed Three Lives — Transcript

by The Forgotten Acre Farm · 19,191 words · 2,720 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00I paid $81 for this house yesterday and
0:03somebody fed the fire in it last night.
0:05Wide on a thousand acres of October corn
0:08flat to the horizon under a sky the
0:10color of struck iron. The wind moves
0:13across the stubble in long slow waves
0:15the way a hand smooths a sheet. Pull in
0:19closer. A set of ruts through the field.
0:22Softened by weather. No mailbox. No
0:25sign. Closer. Still a two-story
0:29farmhouse rising at the end of the ruts.
0:32Rust black corrugated roof. Brick
0:35chimney climbing higher than the ridge.
0:37Dead vines wrapped tight across every
0:39window. A balcony sagging on one side
0:42like a broken wrist. Inside the empty
0:45parlor, a folded wool blanket. A tin of
0:48pastels label facing out. A kettle still
0:52warm on the hearthstone.
0:54tight on a woman's hand on the banister.
0:57The wood is warm where a stranger's hand
0:59has just been
1:01upstairs. A floorboard shifts. She lifts
1:03her chin toward the dark. The road
1:06between Columbus and the Ohio Indiana
1:08line runs flat and gray in late October.
1:11Corn stubble on both sides. Sky the
1:14color of a nickel left in rain. Tany
1:18Everheart had been driving 6 hours when
1:20she first understood she was not going
1:22back. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever.
1:27Her hands on the wheel of the 2003 Dodge
1:30Neon looked like the hands of a woman
1:32she did not entirely recognize, thinner
1:35at the knuckles than she remembered.
1:38Nails bitten down. A pale band of skin
1:41on the ring finger where nothing had
1:43been for 3 months, and still the shape
1:45of the absence showed. She had $412 in
1:49cash folded inside an empty biscotti tin
1:52on the passenger seat.
1:53A canvas backpack behind the driver's
1:55seat, tan khaki with dark brown leather
1:58trim, soft at the corners from years of
2:00use. A denim jacket she had owned since
2:03community college, the medium blue
2:06washed almost to gray at the elbows.
2:09Terracotta corduroy pants her mother had
2:11bought her the year before the
2:12diagnosis. A phone with no charger. That
2:16was the inventory of a whole life. 26
2:20years reduced to what would fit on one
2:22seat.
2:24Behind her in Columbus, Ohio, Garrison
2:27Pike had not yet noticed, or so she told
2:30herself, because Garrison noticed
2:33everything, the way the kitchen trash
2:36was tied, whether she parked 3 in too
2:40far from the curb, the particular rustle
2:43her coat made when she came in after
2:45dark. 5 years of being noticed had
2:48taught her that being noticed was not
2:50the same as being seen. She had left at
2:524:17 in the morning. She remembered the
2:55number because the digital clock on the
2:57microwave had been the last thing she
2:58looked at before closing the apartment
3:00door. The hallway carpet had still
3:03smelled like the shrimp he had cooked
3:04the night before. He slept heavy. He
3:07always slept heavy after wine. She did
3:10not take the ring. She left it on the
3:13bathroom counter. She did not leave a
3:16note because a note is a conversation
3:19and she was done with conversations. 6
3:22hours in the neon's heater worked only
3:24on the lowest setting. So she had been
3:25cold since Zanesville. She could not
3:28feel her fingers. She would not stop.
3:31Stopping meant thinking. And thinking
3:33meant the small poisonous voice that had
3:35lived in the back of her head for the
3:37last 5 years would open its mouth. He
3:40didn't hit you. You can't call this
3:42anything. that voice. She pressed harder
3:46on the gas. The town of Dalville showed
3:48up on a sign that had been shot through
3:50twice with a 22.
3:53Population 1,840,
3:56established 1847.
3:58Welcome, it said, as if welcome were a
4:02thing a sign could do. She pulled into
4:04the lot of a church that had a plywood
4:06cutout of a cartoon lamb nailed to the
4:09front. Trinity Fellowship.
4:12Overnight parking permitted, it said on
4:14a smaller sign if you called the deacon
4:16first. She did not call the deacon. She
4:19crawled into the back seat, pulled her
4:21jacket over her shoulders, and slept for
4:233 hours. When she woke, there was a thin
4:26skim of frost on the inside of the back
4:28window and a yellow sticky note on the
4:30windshield.
4:32Coffeey's on in the fellowship hall till
4:3410. Deacon Lonnie, she cried for 2
4:38minutes. Not because of the note,
4:40because she had forgotten that people
4:42put yellow sticky notes on strangers
4:43cars. She did not go inside for coffee.
4:47Not yet. She was not ready to be looked
4:50at. She watched the parking lot for a
4:52while instead. A woman in a long down
4:55coat came out of the church at 8:15
4:57carrying a plastic tote of himnels. She
5:00did not look at Tanzy's car. That was
5:03its own kind of mercy.
5:06Two boys in matching navy puffers
5:08crossed the lot on the way to a pickup.
5:11They did not look either. Nobody in this
5:13town, as far as Tany could tell, looked
5:15at anybody who did not want to be looked
5:17at. That was the thing about rural
5:20Indiana that she had not yet learned to
5:22name, but that she was already half an
5:24hour into her first morning here,
5:26beginning to feel in her shoulders. She
5:28drove instead to the edge of town, found
5:30a pullout by a reservoir, and ate half a
5:32protein bar from the glove box. The
5:35water was the color of wet slate. A
5:37single heron stood in the shallows, not
5:39moving. She watched the heron for a long
5:41time. The heron did not move either,
5:43which in a different season might have
5:45meant the heron was dead. But the
5:48heron's throat worked once slowly around
5:50a swallow, and the heron kept not
5:52moving.
5:53She understood, watching it, that there
5:55were ways to live that did not involve
5:57running.
5:59That was not something she could use
6:00yet. She filed it away for later. When
6:04she came back through Dale Vil at noon,
6:06she parked outside the public library.
6:09Red brick, two columns, a sign out front
6:12that read, "The Lenor M. Chatwick
6:15Memorial Library, established 1952."
6:19She walked in because the library had a
6:21bathroom. She stayed because it was
6:24warm. The woman at the circulation desk
6:26had a silver nose stud and a cardigan
6:29the color of oatmeal. Middle30s. hair in
6:32a messy twist held up by a pencil. "Are
6:35you okay, honey?" Tanzy, who had not
6:38been called honey in 5 years by anyone
6:40who did not want something from her,
6:42could not answer.
6:44"There's a book for that," the woman
6:46said so softly and so quickly that it
6:49took Tanzy a full 4 seconds to realize
6:51it had been a joke. Then Tanzy laughed.
6:55A small broken laugh, a noise her throat
6:58had forgotten the shape of. The woman
7:01introduced herself as Petra Denning. She
7:03put a paper cup of water on the counter
7:05and did the one thing Tany had not
7:07braced for. She did not look at her for
7:10too long. She slid the cup across and
7:13then went back to a return cart behind
7:15her and started sorting books into
7:17stacks with the practiced soft-handed
7:19speed of a woman who had been sorting
7:21books on that cart for a decade. She did
7:24not glance up to see whether Tany took
7:25the water. She sorted. The thump of
7:29hardback against hardback was the only
7:31sound in the room. Tanzy took the water.
7:34She stood there for maybe 20 seconds,
7:36not drinking. Her first name was the
7:39only word she offered, just the one.
7:43Petra did not ask for more. She did,
7:45however, slide a laminated card across
7:47the counter without turning around. On
7:50it was a list handwritten in neat block
7:52letters.
7:53Hours to sit safely 9:00 a.m. to 700
7:57p.m. Bathroom keys ask Wi-Fi password.
8:02Chatwick 1 1952 hot tea selfs serve back
8:06left. If you need to cry, small study
8:08room 2 has a door that locks. Tanzy read
8:12the list twice. The second time her hand
8:14shook. Later she would understand that
8:17Petra Denning had not written that card
8:19for her. Petra Denning had written that
8:21card years ago and had slid it across
8:23the counter hundreds of times. But in
8:26that moment, Tanzy believed the universe
8:27had handlettered it for her alone, and
8:30she folded the laminated edge in her
8:32palm until it dug in. She sat in the
8:34periodicals corner for 3 hours. She read
8:37a magazine without taking in a single
8:39sentence of it. She drank two cups of
8:42the self-s served tea. She watched an
8:44old man in a carhe heart jacket come in
8:46and read the Logan Sport Pharaoh's
8:48Tribune cover to cover and leave without
8:50speaking to anyone. She watched a mother
8:52with a toddler on her hip check out a
8:54stack of picture books that was taller
8:56than the toddler. She watched Petra over
8:59the periodicals rack do her job. Petra
9:02was the kind of woman who made other
9:04people's hard days look from the other
9:06side of the counter like regular days.
9:08That was a skill. Tanzy did not have
9:11words for it yet, but she saw it. At 4
9:14she went into the small study room, too,
9:16and cried. She cried for seven minutes
9:19with the door locked. Then she washed
9:21her face at the water fountain in the
9:23hall, came out, nodded once at Petra, on
9:25her way to the door, and left. That
9:27night she slept in the back of the neon
9:29again, parked, this time in a free
9:30campground on the near shore of a
9:32glacial lake whose name she did not
9:34know. The campground had a composting
9:37toilet and a metal fire ring. She did
9:40not light a fire. She lay on her side,
9:42watching a hand of pines move against a
9:44sky that still carried a little light.
9:46And she said her own name out loud three
9:49times. Tanzy Everheart. Tanzy Everheart.
9:52Tany Everheart because she had not said
9:54it uninterrupted in a very long time.
9:57Because Garrison called her Tan or Babe.
10:00Or when he was in one of his moods. you
10:03because her mother, who was the last
10:05person to use her full name without the
10:07dimminionive, had been dead 2 years and
10:092 months, and because somewhere between
10:12the apartment in Columbus and this lake,
10:15she had become afraid she would forget
10:17the sound of herself. The wind came up
10:19around midnight. It moved through the
10:21pines the way a person's hand moves
10:23through a horse's mane, slow, heavy with
10:25intention.
10:27She drew her jacket higher over her
10:29shoulders, and listened. It was the
10:32first night in 5 years that she had
10:33slept with no one else in the next room.
10:36She had expected that to feel like
10:38freedom.
10:39It felt at first like something else,
10:42like standing at the edge of a swimming
10:44pool on the first morning of the summer.
10:46The water would be cold. The water would
10:48be fine. She was afraid of the water.
10:51She was going to get in the water. She
10:54did not get in the water that night. She
10:56lay on the edge of it and watched the
10:58pines move until she fell asleep. She
11:00woke at 6:10. There was a thin frost on
11:03the inside of the back window again. She
11:06sat up. Her neck was a strip of knots.
11:09Her feet were numb. She opened the door
11:11of the neon and she stood up into the
11:13cold morning and she said out loud,
11:15"Okay,
11:17day two." That was all. She said it to
11:20the pines, and the pines did not answer,
11:22which was its own kind of answer. She
11:25drove into Dale Vale and used the
11:27Trinity Fellowship bathroom because the
11:29door said, "Open for prayer and bathroom
11:31use. Please wipe up after yourself,"
11:34signed Deacon Lonnie.
11:36She wiped up after herself. She did not
11:39pray except that she thought about Petra
11:41and the laminated card for a minute
11:43while she washed her hands, and she was
11:45not sure if that counted or not.
11:48She went back to the library at 11.
11:52Petra looked up from the circulation
11:54desk and did not pretend not to
11:55recognize her and did not pretend to.
11:58There was a small nod, the same nod a
12:01person might give to a dog they had been
12:03feeding on the back porch for 3 days.
12:06Welcome you again. Come on in. Petra
12:09wanted to know if she had eaten milk and
12:11crackers.
12:13Tanzy admitted, which was a lie because
12:16she had not eaten milk and crackers for
12:183 days. She had eaten a milk and a
12:20sleeve of saltines on the hood of her
12:22car that morning, but the truth of the
12:24sentence was that she had not eaten a
12:26real meal in some number of days. She
12:29had stopped counting.
12:31That is not eating. Petra reached under
12:33the counter and produced a banana which
12:35she sat on the counter between them like
12:37a chest piece. Tanzy took it, peeled it,
12:40ate it in the entryway, standing with
12:42the kind of concentration people usually
12:44reserve for scripture. When she was
12:47done, Petra, still not looking up from a
12:49screen, asked how she was for money.
12:51Tanzy considered lying. Did not. $370.
12:58Can you drive? Petra wanted to know.
13:00Tanzy had a car. That was not what Petra
13:03had asked. Tanzy had to think about that
13:06because it was not a yes or no question
13:09really. It was a question about her
13:11shoulders, her hands, her ability to be
13:14alone in a cab with her own thoughts for
13:16hours at a time. She could drive. She
13:19said so.
13:21Petra nodded once, then slid a flyer
13:24across the counter. The flyer was
13:26printed on golden rod paper, the kind of
13:28paper county offices printed things on
13:31in 1998 and had not stopped printing on
13:34since. Cass County Rural Address
13:36Initiative. Help us map the last 11% of
13:39unmarked county roads for next
13:41generation 911 emergency response. $18
13:45per hour. Cash paid weekly. Own vehicle
13:49required. No experience necessary.
13:52Rural address mapping. Petra said a
13:55federal program. Every county in the
13:57Midwest was finishing it up. Cass was
14:00behind. They needed people who could
14:02drive slow and read a county plat map
14:04without getting a headache. What did the
14:07job do? Tany wanted to know. Petra
14:10explained. Blue reflective signs, house
14:13numbers, every driveway that didn't have
14:15one yet. So the ambulance knew where to
14:18find you. cash because the county was 37
14:21years behind on digitizing its records
14:23and the state was holding a grant over
14:25its head with both hands. Tany looked at
14:28the flyer. The flyer looked back at her.
14:31She started to ask something. Petra cut
14:34her off. Ask for Mara at the public
14:37works trailer. Tell her Petra sent you.
14:40Don't tell her anything else. Tanzy
14:42drove to the public works trailer, which
14:44was a double wide parked behind the
14:46county garage. Mara was a woman of 55
14:49with a gray braid down her back and
14:51eyelasses on a beaded chain.
14:54Mara did not ask for ID.
14:58Mara did not ask for an address.
15:01Mara asked if Tany had ever driven a
15:03quarter mile down a dirt road without
15:06stopping to check if she was still on a
15:08road. Tanzy had in fact done that many
15:11times growing up on her grandmother's
15:12farm in southern Illinois, which Mara
15:15did not need to know.
15:17Yes was enough. Mara handed her a
15:20clipboard, a canvas bag of blue
15:22reflective signs, a cordless drill with
15:25a charged battery, and a laminated map
15:27of the county's remaining unmarked
15:29parcels. The instructions were short.
15:32Bring back unused signs. Bring back the
15:34drill at end of day. Only drill into
15:37cedar 4x4s,
15:40Tanzy said herself. The posts were in
15:43the back of Mara's truck. Load 15 for
15:45the first day. Nobody was expecting
15:48miracles. Week one for signs was a good
15:51week. Tanzy loaded 15 cedar posts into
15:54the trunk of the Neon. It took three
15:57trips. The Neon squatted visibly lower
16:00on its rear suspension. On the map, Mara
16:02had circled a section northwest of town
16:04in Red Ballpoint, a long lazy capital
16:08sea of unmarked parcels tucked between
16:10two county roads that did not quite
16:12connect. The names on the plat were not
16:15addresses. They were parcel 111 1111472
16:21kinds of names. The roads themselves had
16:24names though. Someone had written them
16:26in pencil decades ago in a hand too neat
16:28to be a county clerk's. Buckthornne
16:31Lane, Hillman Trail, Pentecost Road, 10
16:36Mile Cut. Tanzy traced Buckthorn Lane
16:38with the pad of her finger. Mara told
16:40her to start wherever. The county did
16:43not care what order, so Tanzy started
16:45with Buckthornne, not because it meant
16:47anything, because it was the first on
16:49the list. She did not sleep in Dale that
16:52night. She drove 22 mi north to a
16:55soybean farm whose porch light she could
16:57see from a distance across a flat field,
17:00and she parked at the end of their long
17:02drive, and she walked up to the
17:03farmhouse door, and she knocked. A woman
17:07in a flannel robe opened the inside door
17:09and looked at her through a storm door
17:11with brass fittings and said nothing for
17:13a full second.
17:15You running from something or just
17:17running? Tany opened her mouth, closed
17:19it, opened it again. Both, I think. The
17:24woman nodded as if that were a perfectly
17:26reasonable answer. She said Tanzy could
17:28park behind the equipment shed as long
17:30as she wanted, but pleased not to leave
17:32trash. Then she went back inside and
17:35shut the door.
17:37In the morning, there was a half gallon
17:39of milk and a sleeve of saltines on the
17:41neon's hood. Tany did not cry this time.
17:45She drank the milk slowly, standing in
17:47the cold, watching her breath leave her
17:50mouth in small gray clouds.
17:53She thought about how there were two
17:55kinds of generous people in the world.
17:57The kind who make you look at them while
17:59they're being generous, and the kind who
18:01don't. She was beginning to think she
18:04had spent five years with the first kind
18:06and had not noticed the second kind
18:08existed. She drove back to Dale and
18:11started Buckthorn Lane. Buckthorn Lane
18:13turned out to be a narrow strip of
18:15gravel in packed dirt that left County
18:17Road 400 West between two fields of cut
18:20cornstubble and ran straight as a shot
18:23toward nothing. The first half mile had
18:25four driveways. She pulled in at each
18:28one, dug a post hole with the manual
18:31augur Mara had thrown in at the last
18:33minute, set the cedar 4x4, drilled the
18:37blue reflective sign at the top. 612
18:41630
18:43644
18:44660.
18:46She wrote the house numbers in Sharpie
18:48on the back of her receipt, first
18:49checking them against the plat map twice
18:51before she drilled. The first house was
18:54a brick ranch with a porch glider and a
18:56cat asleep on the glider. A black lab
18:59came out of the yard and stood at the
19:00end of the drive while she dug, watching
19:02her tail, giving one slow wag every 30
19:05seconds.
19:07She did not acknowledge the dog, and the
19:09dog did not acknowledge her. When the
19:11sign was up, she looked at the dog and
19:14said, "Good boy to it quietly." And the
19:16dog turned around and went back into the
19:18yard. The second house was a trailer on
19:20a concrete pad with a row of white solar
19:23lights along the walk. Nobody came out.
19:26A set of windchimes made of flattened
19:28spoons rang once in a gust of wind. The
19:30third was a two-story vinyl-sided
19:32farmhouse where an old man in a John
19:35Deere cap came out onto his porch and
19:37watched her work for the full 20 minutes
19:39it took to set the post. He did not
19:42speak. When she was done, he lifted his
19:45cap by the bill 1 in as a greeting. She
19:48lifted a hand back. He went inside.
19:52The fourth was an abandoned looking
19:54place with the drive grown over and a
19:56for sale sign so weathered the phone
19:58number had faded. She set the sign
20:01anyway. The county had told her to. At
20:04the fifth driveway, there was no
20:05driveway, just a gap in the corn on the
20:08north side of the lane where the stubble
20:10had been beaten down over years of
20:12something driving in and out slowly,
20:14maybe once or twice a season. A pair of
20:17ruts softened by weather. No mailbox, no
20:22sign, no number at all. She stopped the
20:25neon, shut off the engine. The silence
20:29of a Cass County cornfield in late
20:31October is not really silence. There is
20:34the small rasp of dry leaves moving
20:37against one another. A crow somewhere.
20:40The distant buzz of a single engine
20:42plane miles up. her own breathing louder
20:45than any of it. She got out of the car,
20:48walked to the ruts, followed them with
20:50her eyes. They curved slightly 200 yards
20:53in around a stand of black walnut trees
20:56whose leaves had already dropped. Beyond
20:59the walnuts, something gray and vertical
21:01rose above the corn. A chimney brick.
21:05She put her hands in her jacket pockets
21:07and walked. The ruts led her, bending
21:09gently east through the corn. She came
21:12around the stand of walnuts and stopped
21:14because the house was all at once in
21:16front of her. The way things are when a
21:18view opened suddenly and she had to make
21:20her lungs remember how. It was a
21:22two-story woodframe farmhouse. It had
21:24stood there a very long time. The roof
21:27was corrugated metal rust blackened to
21:29the color of dried blood where it had
21:31not been punched through which was in
21:33several places. The chimney she had seen
21:36was brick red orange climbing the
21:38lefthand side of the house higher than
21:39the ridge of the roof itself. The siding
21:42was wood shingle weathered to a soft
21:44silver gray warped and cupped along
21:46every exposed edge. On the second floor
21:49a wooden balcony ran along the front,
21:52its railing half collapsed pieces of it
21:54hanging like broken fingers. The windows
21:57upper and lower both were empty of glass
21:59or nearly so. A few jagged panes caught
22:02the light in slivers. vines. Dead vines.
22:07The whole house was wrapped in them,
22:08climbing the siding, crawling across the
22:10roof, slipping through the window
22:12frames. They were thick as her wrist in
22:14places. In the summer, they must have
22:17swallowed the house whole. Now in late
22:20October, they were a brown exoskeleton,
22:22and the house inside them was beginning
22:24to show. The foundation was brick, red
22:28like the chimney, chipped. One corner
22:31had given way so that the floor inside
22:32must have tilted somewhere around the
22:34base of the house debris,
22:37broken boards, fallen brick. A chunk of
22:41the second floor balcony that had come
22:43down at some point and now lay flat in
22:45the weeds. Behind the house the corn.
22:49Around the house the corn. In every
22:52direction the corn going yellow to
22:54brown, standing in its rose like
22:56something patient. and above all of it,
22:59a sky the color of a piece of iron.
23:02Tanzy stood at the end of the ruts, and
23:04she did not step closer. Her backpack
23:07was heavy on her shoulders, her hands in
23:09her pockets, her hair loose at her back.
23:12She just stood
23:14looking.
23:16She was not a person who believed in
23:18signs, but she had the distinct and
23:20alarming feeling that this house had
23:22been waiting for her. That was the first
23:24thought. The second thought was that
23:26this house was not on her list. She
23:28checked the plat map, spread it on the
23:31hood of the neon, traced the section
23:33with her finger. There was a parcel
23:36there, yes, marked 11 1
23:409 014.
23:42No owner name, no address.
23:46The plat line stopped at the edge of the
23:48corn and did not extend to the house at
23:50all, as if the surveyor had not quite
23:53believed the house was there. She drove
23:56back into Dale with four signs posted
23:58and the fifth cedar post still in the
24:00trunk. At the courthouse annex, she
24:03stood at the counter of the treasurer's
24:04office until a woman with a wedge of
24:07gray hair looked up from a desktop
24:09computer and asked flatly if Tanzy
24:12needed help. Tanzy had a parcel number.
24:15She wanted to know who owned it. The
24:17woman wanted to know the address. No
24:20address. The woman raised one eyebrow,
24:23took the slip of paper Tanzy had copied
24:25the number onto. Type slowly, one finger
24:28at a time. She watched the screen,
24:31frowned, typed again. That one had not
24:34had a human attached to it since 1996,
24:36she said. which meant what Tany wanted
24:39to know, which meant the last owner of
24:41record had died in 1996 in testate no
24:45next of kin that anybody could find
24:47property reverted to the county after
24:50the statutory period and it had sat on
24:52the forfeite list for 28 years because
24:55the back taxes plus penalties were not
24:58worth what the land would bring at
25:00auction. Tanzy asked after the back
25:03taxes. The woman tapped, squinted.
25:07$81.114.
25:10Tanzy did not say anything for a moment.
25:13The woman heard the silence correctly.
25:15Agricultural zoning, she clarified with
25:18a structure the county had classified as
25:20non-contributing,
25:21which was a word that meant the county
25:23wished the structure would fall down on
25:25its own so it did not have to pay to
25:27tear it down. Tanzy asked what would
25:30happen if she paid the 8114. The woman
25:33went through it slowly, the way a person
25:35explains something to someone who looks
25:37like they might faint. Under IC6-1.1-25,
25:43Tany would get a tax deed with a
25:45one-year redemption period. During that
25:48year, the original heirs, if any of them
25:50ever surfaced, could pay Tanzy back plus
25:5310% interest and take the parcel. After
25:57one year, if no one came forward, Tany
25:59would own it outright. The year started
26:02the day of payment. Tanzy counted out
26:04$82 in cash from the biscotti tin. The
26:07woman took $81.14,
26:10gave her back 86 cents in a little white
26:12envelope, and printed a receipt that was
26:14already fading on the thermal paper. The
26:18woman wanted to know if she wanted to
26:19think about this. Tanzy had thought. The
26:23woman wanted to know if she wanted to
26:25see the parcel first. Tany had seen it.
26:28The woman wanted to know if she knew
26:30there was a structure. Tanzy had seen
26:32the structure. The woman looked at her a
26:34long time. All right. She stamped the
26:38receipt, stapled it to the taxdeed, slid
26:42both across the counter. Welcome to
26:44Buckthorn Lane. Lord help you.
26:48Tany drove back out to the house. It was
26:514:40 in the afternoon and the sun had
26:53already given up. She parked the neon
26:56right at the end of the ruts as close to
26:58the house as she dared on the squashy
27:00ground, and she walked up to the porch,
27:02slowly carrying the backpack because she
27:04did not want to leave it in the car. The
27:06porch steps were 2x8s, nailed over what
27:09had once been stone risers. The top step
27:12gave under her boot by about a/4 in,
27:14then held. The front door was not
27:17locked. There was no lock. The knob had
27:20been removed, and the hole it had left
27:22was ringed with rust.
27:24She pushed the door with the flat of her
27:26hand. It swung in without a sound. She
27:30had expected a smell, and there was one,
27:32but it was not the smell she had
27:34expected. It was not rot. It was not
27:37mildew. It was wood smoke. Faint, old,
27:42but wood smoke. She stepped in. The
27:46front room ran the width of the house.
27:48Plank floor, wide boards maybe 8 in
27:51across, cupped in gray. A brick
27:54fireplace on the left hand wall, its
27:56hearthstone cracked. No furniture. Dead
28:00vines through the window openings on the
28:02far wall reaching in like fingers that
28:04had frozen in the act of grabbing. In
28:07the corner by the fireplace folded
28:09neatly a wool blanket, brown and cream
28:12check, clean, no dust on it. Beside the
28:16blanket, a small flat tin, pastiles, the
28:19kind people who have sore throats carry.
28:22Tany did not touch either. She stood in
28:25the doorway with her hands still on the
28:27frame and her heart doing a thing she
28:29had not felt it do in a long time, which
28:31was knock against the inside of her ribs
28:34loudly enough to hear. because that
28:36blanket had been folded by someone whose
28:38mother had taught them to fold a
28:40blanket, and because the pastel tin had
28:42been set down with its label facing out,
28:45which was the kind of detail Garrison
28:47had always noticed about her, how she
28:49set things down, label facing out, every
28:53can in the pantry. He used to make fun
28:56of her for it. She backed out of the
28:58house, shut the door, got in the neon,
29:01drove to the end of Buckthorn Lane, sat
29:04with the engine running. She thought
29:05about calling someone. She did not know
29:08who. She slept that night in the neon
29:10again, parked this time on the shoulder
29:12of County Road 400 West, half a mile
29:15from her new house with the doors locked
29:17and her backpack on her chest. She did
29:21not sleep well. She drifted in and out
29:23of a thin, cold layer of almost sleep,
29:26listening every 40 minutes to the
29:28distant hum of a semi on the state road
29:30a mile east.
29:33Once around 2:00 in the morning, a
29:34pickup drove past and slowed and then
29:37kept going, and she lay very still with
29:40her eyes open until she could not hear
29:42it anymore. When she woke up at 6:15,
29:45there was a white Chevrolet Silverado
29:47pickup parked nose tonose with her.
29:50Brand new pearl white. A magnetic sign
29:54on the driver's door that read in Clean
29:56Navy Sanif Granville Agricultural
29:59Holdings Land Acquisitions LLC. A man
30:03got out. Early 50s khaki pants, navy
30:07polo with the same logo stitched over
30:09the pocket. Hair the uniform color of a
30:12thing that has been dyed too many times
30:14to remember what color it was first. He
30:17smiled at her through her windshield and
30:19held up both hands in the universal
30:21gesture of I mean you no harm. She
30:24rolled her window down an inch. "Good
30:27morning, ma'am," he began. He had not
30:29meant to startle her. He had. He
30:31apologized. He gave his first name Dale
30:34and then started on a surname. She did
30:36not care. He paused. The smile adjusted
30:40one click wider. He worked for a family
30:43holdings company. He explained that had
30:45been trying to clean up the title on
30:47that parcel at the end of Buckthornne
30:49Lane for the better part of 30 years. He
30:52understood from the county that she had
30:54paid the back taxes on it yesterday.
30:56Information moved fast. Tany observed.
30:59in Cass County. He returned information
31:01moved at the speed of coffee. She did
31:03not laugh. He reached into his breast
31:06pocket, drew out a folded piece of
31:09paper, held it up to her window. He had
31:12a cashier's check there, he said,
31:15already signed. The amount was blank.
31:18She could write any number she wanted
31:19inside Reason, and his [clears throat]
31:21office would take the parcel off her
31:23hands today. Clean, no lean, no title
31:26fight. She kept the cash. She went on
31:29with her life. She looked at the paper.
31:31She looked at him. She wanted to know
31:33the reason. His principal, he said, had
31:36a sentimental interest in restoring the
31:38family's old agricultural holdings in
31:40this area. That house had once been part
31:42of a larger property. That house had
31:45been on the forfeite list for 28 years,
31:47Tany pointed out. Which should tell her
31:49something, he said smoothly about how
31:51long they had been trying. Then she
31:53asked the question that mattered. Why
31:55had they not just paid the $81? The polo
31:58shirt man's smile did a thing. A very
32:01small, very brief, very revealing thing.
32:04For about a half second, his mouth
32:06forgot to smile at all. Then it
32:09remembered. Legal complications, he
32:11said. Family trust matters. Simpler to
32:15approach the new owner than to go
32:16through probate.
32:19So he pressed what number would she like
32:21him to write. Tanzy thought about $412
32:25folded in a biscotti tin. She thought
32:28about three nights of sleeping in a car.
32:31She thought about the way her mother
32:32used to say that when a man was that
32:34polite that early in the morning he was
32:35either selling something or hiding
32:37something and most likely both. She
32:40thought about the folded wool blanket in
32:42the front room of her house. Label out
32:45pastel tin. She looked the man in the
32:47eye. Zero. Pardon. Write zero. Then keep
32:52it. The smile left him entirely. He did
32:56not think she understood what she had
32:57just bought. That she agreed was
32:59correct. She did not, but she added she
33:02was going to. She rolled her window up.
33:05She did not peel out. She did not do
33:08anything dramatic. She put the knee on
33:11in drive and pulled around his truck
33:12slowly, carefully because the shoulder
33:14was soft. And she drove the half mile
33:17back to Buckthorn Lane and parked at the
33:19foot of her own ruts. In the rear view,
33:21the Silverado did not follow
33:22immediately. It sat where it was for
33:25maybe 30 seconds. Then it turned around
33:28in a wide arc and drove back toward
33:30town. When it was gone, Tanzy sat in the
33:33driver's seat and realized her hands
33:34were shaking. Not from fear, from
33:37something else, something she had not
33:40felt in 5 years. She could not remember
33:42the word for a moment. She had to sit
33:45there and look at the dashboard and let
33:46it come. Then it came. Anger. Not the
33:50small anxious apologetic anger she had
33:53learned to feel inside a locked bathroom
33:55with the shower running.
33:57The other kind. The kind that stands up
34:01straight.
34:02The kind that says no.
34:06Mine.
34:08She was 26 years old and she had not
34:11felt mine in a very long time. She got
34:14out of the car. She walked up the ruts
34:17to her house. She stood on the porch in
34:19the gray early November morning with her
34:21hands on her hips and her backpack on
34:23her shoulders and her hair falling loose
34:25down her back. And she said out loud to
34:27no one and to everything,
34:29"Okay, let's see what you're hiding."
34:33She pushed the door open. The wool
34:35blanket was gone. The pastel tin was
34:37gone. A kettle sat on the hearthstone.
34:40Black iron the size of a cantaloupe.
34:44Someone had put it there in the last 6
34:46hours. And on the floor, just inside the
34:48door, where she could not possibly have
34:50missed it, someone had set down a small
34:53flat object wrapped in a scrap of clean
34:55muslin. She knelt. She unwrapped it
34:58slowly. It was a photograph, Polaroid,
35:02faded. The white border yellowed. A
35:05young woman in her late teens, 19, maybe
35:0820, standing on the same porch she was
35:10standing on now. hair the color of wheat
35:13pulled back with a bandana, smiling but
35:16with her teeth not quite showing,
35:18holding a baby, a boy a few months old
35:21in a knit cap. One small hand reaching
35:24for the collar of her shirt. On the back
35:26of the photograph in blue ballpoint, in
35:28a round hand, someone had written four
35:30words, "Sepherd 5 months, Buckthornne."
35:34Tanzy sat down on the floor of her new
35:36house in the smell of old wood smoke
35:39that was no longer old. And she held the
35:41photograph against her chest and she
35:43understood that her life was not about
35:45to get simpler. It was about to get a
35:48lot of things. Simpler was not one of
35:51them. Outside the sky over Cass County
35:54bruised slowly toward Storm.
35:57The corn moved in long, slow waves
36:00against a wind that had not yet reached
36:01the house. Somewhere down the road, a
36:04crow called twice and then went quiet.
36:07Inside, Tanzy Everheart did not move.
36:10She held the picture of Shepherd and his
36:12mother, whose name she did not yet know,
36:14and she listened
36:17for a footstep, for a breath, for the
36:20sound of the person who had folded that
36:22blanket and set out that kettle and left
36:25behind a photograph of a child who
36:27would, if he were alive, be a grown man,
36:29now almost as old as the stranger in the
36:32pickup, who had offered her a blank
36:33check at dawn. She listened, and the
36:36house listened with her. After a long
36:38time, she stood. She did not put the
36:40photograph down. She walked slowly from
36:43the front room into the kitchen. The
36:46kitchen had a stove, cast iron, wood
36:49burning. Beside it, a low wooden box
36:52with firewood stacked in it, split and
36:54dry. The wood had not been in that box
36:57for 28 years. It had been split in the
37:00last month. Beyond the kitchen, a narrow
37:03door stood a jar. Behind that door, a
37:06flight of wooden stairs went up into the
37:08second story where the balcony had
37:10collapsed. Tanzy put her hand on the
37:12banister. The banister was warm. Not
37:15warm like fire, warm like a hand had
37:18been on it very recently.
37:21She drew her hand back. And in that
37:23moment upstairs something moved. Not
37:26loud, not threatening.
37:29the soft specific creek of a floorboard
37:32settling under a weight that had been
37:33carefully carefully lifted.
37:36Tanzy Everheart stood at the foot of the
37:38stairs in her own house, which she had
37:40paid $81 for 22 hours ago, and she did
37:43not run. She did not scream. She tipped
37:46her chin up toward the dark of the
37:47second floor landing. She tightened her
37:50hand around the Polaroid photograph.
37:52She took one breath, then another, and
37:56she called in a voice that was not
37:58polite, and was not afraid up the stairs
38:00into the unknown dark of her own house
38:02the first clear sentence she had spoken
38:04in her own name in 5 years. I know
38:07you're up there, and I'm not leaving."
38:09The silence on the second floor held for
38:12one breath,
38:13then two. Then a third, so long that
38:17Tanzy began to wonder if she had
38:19imagined the creek at all. She had not
38:22imagined it
38:24because the floorboard spoke again, a
38:27different board this time, farther from
38:30the top of the stairs.
38:32Moving away,
38:34not toward her, away.
38:39She understood in the slow way a person
38:41understands a thing her body already
38:43knows, that whoever was up there was
38:45more afraid of her than she was of them.
38:47That changed the shape of the morning
38:49entirely. She did not go up the stairs.
38:52She called up them instead in a voice
38:55she pitched lower than her usual
38:56speaking voice, the way she used to
38:58pitch her voice when she was a child and
39:00found a stray cat in the garage. They
39:03could come down. She was not going to
39:06call anybody. Nothing. The kettle was
39:09theirs. She knew nothing. She was going
39:13to make coffee in her car. She would be
39:15outside for half an hour. The door would
39:18be open. She walked out of the house.
39:21She did not look back. She got into the
39:23neon and drove to the Shell station on
39:25the north edge of Dale.
39:28She bought a bag of ground coffee, a
39:30small saucepan from the auto parts aisle
39:32that was technically marketed as a
39:34radiator flush container, but had never
39:36been used for that, a quart of water, a
39:38sleeve of paper cups, and a carton of
39:40eggs. She drove back. She parked at the
39:44end of the ruts. She boiled water over a
39:46small fire she built from downed walnut
39:49branches in a scorched patch of dirt 20
39:51ft from the porch because her new house
39:53had a wood stove. But she did not yet
39:56know if the flu was safe to use. She
39:58poured grounds directly into the boiled
40:01water and let it steep the way her
40:03grandmother used to on the farm in
40:04southern Illinois. She poured the coffee
40:07carefully into one paper cup. She set
40:10the cup on the top porch step. She
40:13cracked two eggs into the saucepan and
40:15scrambled them with a stick over the
40:17same fire. She set the saucepan on the
40:20second porch step with a plastic fork
40:22balanced across it. Then she walked back
40:24down to the neon. She sat on the hood.
40:27She watched the house for 11 minutes.
40:31Nothing happened. In the 12th minute,
40:33the front door opened. The way a door
40:35opens when the person opening it is
40:37trying very hard not to be heard. The
40:40door drew in 3 in. stopped, drew in six
40:44more. A hand came out first, a small
40:47hand, pale, fingernails bitten.
40:51[clears throat] Then the rest of her
40:53came out. A girl, not a woman. A girl,
40:5714, maybe 15. Hair the color of wet
41:00straw, cut short in a jagged line above
41:02the ears. A man's gray sweatshirt, the
41:05sleeves pushed up to her elbows. A white
41:07t-shirt underneath. jeans two sizes too
41:10big, held on her hips by a belt made of
41:12rope, sneakers with the laces tied in
41:15triple knots. She looked at the coffee.
41:18She looked at the eggs. She looked at
41:20the neon. She did not look at Tanzy.
41:23Then she sat down on the top porch step
41:25very fast like a bird settling. And she
41:27ate the eggs with the plastic fork in a
41:29way that told Tanzy she had not eaten
41:31since the day before yesterday.
41:34She drank the coffee in two swallows and
41:36winced because it was hot.
41:39Tanzy did not approach. When the
41:41saucepan was empty, the girl stood up,
41:44wiped her mouth on the back of her
41:45wrist, looked finely across the yard at
41:48Tanzy. She had not taken anything of
41:51Tanzy's. Tanzy knew the blanket was
41:54hers. The tin was hers. Tanzy knew the
41:58kettle, too. Tanzy had figured. The girl
42:02shifted her weight. Watching her face
42:04was like watching weather move across a
42:06field. something gathering, something
42:09loosening. She wanted to know if Tanzy
42:12was going to call the sheriff. No, if
42:15she was going to call CPS. Tanzy paused
42:18on that one because she did not know yet
42:21what the right answer was and because
42:23she would not lie. She was going to ask
42:25the girl some questions. She was going
42:27to answer any questions the girl asked
42:29her. After that, they would figure it
42:32out. The girl considered, "Her name was
42:35Shiloh. That was not her real name.
42:38Tanzies was Tanzy. That was her real
42:41name. The girl's mouth did a thing that
42:44was almost a smile. Not quite. Weird
42:48name. The girl pronounced weird house.
42:50That got the actual smile. It lasted a
42:53second and a half. Tanzy came up the
42:56porch step slowly, sat on the bottom
42:58one, left the top one for Shiloh, put
43:00her hands in her lap where the girl
43:02could see them. She wanted to know how
43:05long the girl had been staying here
43:07since September by herself.
43:11The girl's chin came up. She had been by
43:13herself a long time. Okay. The kettle
43:17the girl volunteered after a moment had
43:19been her grandma's. The real one before
43:22she died. The blanket was from Goodwill
43:25in Lafayette.
43:27She had gotten it with her own money.
43:31Tanzy could not take them. Tanzy was not
43:34taking anything.
43:36The pastels were because of the mold
43:38upstairs.
43:40The girl's throat.
43:42Tanzy made a note of that. Mold
43:45upstairs.
43:47She said nothing about it. She asked
43:50quiet the question that mattered. Was
43:53the girl running from a person or from a
43:55place? The girl looked at her feet at
43:58the toes of her sneakers which were
44:00coming apart at the seams. A place.
44:04Okay. The place had sent her to another
44:06place. She had not liked that one
44:08either. Okay. She was not going back.
44:13Okay. Tanzy said the word four times and
44:17she meant it four different ways each
44:18time and the girl heard every one of
44:21them. Shiloh sat down on the top step,
44:25drew her knees up, wrapped her arms
44:27around them. She said after a while that
44:30Tanzy was not what she had expected.
44:32Tanzy wanted to know what she had
44:34expected. Someone like the man in the
44:36truck. Tanzy's breath stopped for a
44:39second. The girl had seen him before
44:42twice. The first time had been three
44:45weeks ago. He had parked at the end of
44:47the ruts and walked up and tried the
44:49door. She had been in the kitchen. She
44:52had hidden in the dumb waiter. There was
44:54a dumb waiter behind the pantry shelves.
44:57It did not work, but a person fit in it.
45:01If the person was small,
45:03Tanzy stored that information. The
45:05second time had been yesterday morning.
45:07The girl said, "Before the sun." He had
45:11walked up and shined a flashlight
45:12through the parlor window. She had been
45:15asleep on the floor. She had not moved.
45:18He had gone away. Had he said anything
45:21to himself? He had said still here. Then
45:25he had said fine. Then he had gone away.
45:29Tanzy exhaled slowly. She had something
45:32to ask, she warned. And it was not a
45:34trick. The man in the truck. Granville.
45:38Did Shiloh know why he wanted this
45:40house? No. Had her grandma ever talked
45:43about this house? Her grandma had lived
45:46in Renolier. She had never heard of this
45:48house till September. How had she found
45:51it? The girl looked away. She had been
45:54walking, she explained, from Lafayette.
45:57She had been going to Chicago. She had
45:59gotten off the highway because a cop had
46:01been in the median. She had walked down
46:04a side road, then another. She had come
46:07through the corn. The house had been
46:09there. She had knocked. Nobody had
46:12answered. The door had already been like
46:14it was now, so she had gone in. Just
46:18like that. Just like that. Tanzy nodded.
46:22The girl could stay. Shiloh's eyes came
46:25up fast. She wanted the word repeated.
46:28Tanzy repeated it. The house was hers on
46:31paper, and she was telling Shiloh she
46:33could stay. She was not kicking her out.
46:36Shiloh did not know her. Tanzy knew she
46:40had folded her blanket. She knew she had
46:42set the pastel tin label out. She knew
46:45she had eaten Tanzy's eggs instead of
46:48running when she had had the chance.
46:50That was enough information for the next
46:52two days. Shiloh did not speak for a
46:54long moment. When she did, her voice had
46:58gone very small. Nobody had ever said
47:00that to her. Said what? Stay.
47:05Tany did not reach out. She did not
47:08touch her. She just sat on the bottom
47:10step and the two of them watched the sky
47:12over the corn do nothing much and Tanzy
47:15understood that she had come to
47:16Buckthorn Lane to disappear and had
47:19instead been found. That was a Tuesday.
47:22On Wednesday morning, a battered white
47:24Ford E350 panel van pulled up at the end
47:27of the ruts and parked where the
47:28Silverado had parked the morning before.
47:31The van had hollerman mobile welding and
47:34a G repair stencled on the side in
47:36letters that had been there a long time.
47:39The logo was a crossed wrench and a
47:41settling torch inside a circle. A man
47:44got out. 34, maybe 35,
47:486t tall or close enough. Dark brown hair
47:51cut short on the sides, a little longer
47:53on top. A canvas jacket over a brown
47:56canvas workshirt. Jeans faded at the
47:59thighs where a tool belt had ridden for
48:01years. Boots that had been resold
48:04recently. His hands were the first thing
48:06a person noticed about him. Big scarred
48:10across the knuckles the way a welder
48:12are. Clean under the nails in the
48:15careful way of a man who has to scrub
48:17every single night to get clean. He
48:19walked up the ruts like a man who was
48:21not in a hurry. Stopped at the edge of
48:24what would have been the front yard if
48:26the house had had one. He looked at the
48:28chimney, looked at the roof, looked at
48:32the kettle which was now on the stove
48:34inside the kitchen, not visible from the
48:36yard. But he looked at the hole in the
48:39roof where the chimney met the ridge,
48:41and he saw the thin, almost invisible
48:44smudge of wood smoke that had risen from
48:46it all morning, and he understood. He
48:48did not come up on the porch. He stood
48:50in the yard. He called out, "Hello, the
48:53house." That is a thing people still say
48:56in rural Indiana. Hello the house. The
49:00way in a coastal town they say hello the
49:02boat. It means I am outside. I am not
49:06sneaking. Please come to the door if you
49:09choose. Tany came to the door. Shiloh
49:13did not. The man took off his cap. He
49:16had not meant to trouble her. He
49:18explained. He came by this road twice a
49:20month. Oil runs for the Pentecost farm.
49:23This place had been empty 11 years he
49:25had been doing the route. He had seen
49:27smoke. The house was hers. Tanzy told
49:29him. Yes, ma'am. He had heard that at
49:32the diner. Already. Yes, ma'am. How? A
49:38lady at the treasur's office, he said,
49:40talked when she got her eggs over. Easy.
49:43That was how Tanzy did not know whether
49:46to laugh. She did not laugh. The man put
49:48his cap back on and offered a name.
49:51Jasper Hollerman. He was not there to
49:54buy anything. He was not there to tell
49:56her what she should do with the place.
49:58He just wanted to say if that chimney
50:00had been cold since 2013 and she was
50:03running a fire in it, she might want
50:05somebody to look at the flu before it
50:07cracked the brick and she had a house
50:09fire in a dry corn year. That was a lot
50:11of sentence. Yes, ma'am. He had
50:14rehearsed that time. She did laugh a
50:18small one. It surprised her. He did not
50:21come in. He stood in the yard and waited
50:23for her to decide. He had the kind of
50:26patience in him that comes from waiting
50:27for weld pools to cool, from watching
50:30soybeans ripen. From being the kind of
50:32man who grew up in a place where you did
50:34not ever push a woman standing in a
50:36doorway.
50:37Did he charge for a flu look? He did,
50:42but not today.
50:44Today was a hello.
50:46That was not how businesses worked. It
50:49was how his business worked. Why?
50:52Because his mother had taught him. He
50:54said it plainly, not as a line, as a
50:57fact. The way a man says the sky is
51:00blue. Tanzy stepped back, held the door
51:03open. He looked at the flu. He looked at
51:06the rest of the house, too, without
51:08being invited to, but politely with his
51:10hands behind his back the way a person
51:12looks at a museum exhibit. He did not
51:14touch anything. He stepped carefully
51:17around the places where the floorboards
51:19had cupped. He noted the cracked
51:21hearthstone, the soft place by the
51:23kitchen sink where the subfloor had
51:25rotted. The hole in the corner of the
51:27parlor ceiling where someone decades ago
51:29had cut a trap door into the second
51:31story and then boarded it over. He did
51:33not go upstairs. That part of the house
51:36was still Shiloh's, though he did not
51:38know it, and Tanzy was not ready to tell
51:40him. He came back out onto the porch.
51:43His verdict. The flu would hold for the
51:45next two weeks if she did not build the
51:47fire past the second damper. After that,
51:50she would need a brush run through it
51:51and a mortar patch at the elbow. He
51:54could do it for $40 plus whatever the
51:56mortar cost at the hardware store, which
51:58would not be more than 12. $52 Tany
52:01totaled. Yes, ma'am. Okay. He wanted to
52:05know if she wanted it this weekend. Yes,
52:08he would come Saturday. He stood a
52:11second longer. Not awkward, just
52:13finishing a thought. The vines on the
52:16east wall, he suggested if she cut those
52:19back before the first snow, they would
52:21not tear the siding when they froze.
52:23That was not a paying job. That was an
52:26hour with pruning shears. He could lend
52:28her a pair. She observed that he knew an
52:31awful lot about this house. He knew an
52:33awful lot about this county. He put his
52:35cap back on, nodded once, walked down
52:39the ruts, got in his van. Before he
52:42started the engine, he rolled the window
52:44down. Ma'am,
52:47yes. The man in the white truck had been
52:49at the diner that morning, too. He had
52:52been asking who she was. What had Jasper
52:55told him? He had said he did not know.
52:57Had anybody else known? Everybody else
53:00had known. Nobody had told him. He
53:03started the van, drove away. Tanzy stood
53:06on the porch a long time after the dust
53:08settled. Shiloh came up behind her,
53:10silent as always, and asked whether that
53:13man was going to be a problem. Tanzy
53:15considered the question with the
53:17seriousness it deserved. She did not
53:19think so, but she had been wrong about a
53:22man before, so she was going to watch.
53:25Shiloh accepted that. It was perhaps the
53:28most honest thing an adult had ever said
53:29to her. Three days later, Jasper
53:32Hollerman came back on a Saturday
53:34morning with a chimney brush, a bucket
53:36of mortar mix, a tel, and a thermos of
53:38coffee that was better than the coffee
53:40Tanzy had been boiling in her radiator
53:42flush saucepan. He did the flu in 2
53:45hours. He cut the vines off the east
53:47wall of the house in one more. He
53:50accepted the $52.
53:52He also accepted a second cup of coffee
53:54and a plate of the scrambled eggs that
53:56Tanzy was now able to make on the wood
53:58stove. He asked as he was leaving if she
54:00needed anything else. Tanzy, who had
54:03made a decision in the three days
54:05between his visits, said yes. She needed
54:08him to help her move a piece of
54:09furniture. Yes, ma'am. It was in the
54:12master bedroom upstairs. A wardrobe. The
54:16floor was soft under it, and she wanted
54:18to get the weight off before it went
54:20through. He could do that. They went up
54:23together. Shiloh stayed in the kitchen.
54:26Jasper did not ask about the small pile
54:28of things in the corner of the second
54:30floor hallway that was obviously
54:31someone's bed. He had already
54:34understood.
54:36He did not say.
54:38The wardrobe was oak, tall, heavy. They
54:42walked it hand overhand into the smaller
54:45back bedroom where the floor was solid.
54:48When they set it down, Tanzy knelt in
54:50the spot it had just vacated and ran her
54:53fingers along the plank it had been
54:55standing on. The plank moved, not loose,
54:59lifted, the way a plank lifts when a
55:02person has taken it up before and set it
55:04back down carefully. Jasper watched, did
55:08not speak. Tanzy pride. The plank came
55:12up.
55:14Underneath between two joists sat a flat
55:16tin biscuit box, royal dans, blue, the
55:21kind that had held butter cookies at
55:23Christmas in every American household
55:25for 40 years. She lifted the lid inside
55:29in a stack Polaroid photographs,
55:3230, 40 of them. A spiral notebook with a
55:35soft bent cover. Two VHS tapes in paper
55:39sleeves. a folded sheath of what looked
55:42like medical paperwork and wedged along
55:45one side a small manila envelope with
55:47the words if something happens to me
55:50written on the front in the same hand
55:52that had written on the back of the
55:54first Polaroid.
55:56Tanzy's handstilled.
55:58Jasper kneeling beside her offered
56:00quietly to leave. She wanted him to
56:04stay.
56:05Okay. She lifted the spiral notebook
56:08first, opened to the first page. A date
56:11written in blue ball point. June 12th,
56:141989. A name under the date. Laurely
56:17Pembrey, 19. Age today. Then a
56:20paragraph. They put my clothes in a
56:22trash bag and set it on the front porch.
56:25My mother would not look at me. My
56:28father would not come downstairs. I took
56:31the bag and I walked out to the road and
56:33I kept walking until I could not see the
56:35house behind me. I did not cry. I will
56:38not cry. If he does not come, I will
56:41walk to Renelier.
56:43I have $46.
56:45I am 4 months. Tanzy read the paragraph
56:48twice. The air in the room had gone very
56:51still. She turned the page. June 14th. I
56:55found a house. No one is in it.
56:59The door was not locked. There is a
57:01stove. There is water from a hand pump
57:04in the yard. I think it was a farm once.
57:07I think the people who had it stopped
57:10having it. The corn around it is not
57:13theirs anymore either. It belongs to a
57:16man who grows on shares.
57:19He has not seen me. I will be careful.
57:23She turned the page. June 20th. He has
57:27not come. He said he would come. I am
57:31starting to believe he will not. She
57:33turned the page. July 2nd. His brother
57:37came. Tanzy's throat closed. She skipped
57:41forward. Fingers moving faster now. The
57:44entries got shorter. The handwriting
57:47changed, stayed the same, changed again.
57:50There were weeks between some of them,
57:52days between others. October 8th, 1990.
57:57He is a boy 4 lb 11 oz. I did it alone.
58:02There is a woman in town who will help.
58:05I do not know her name yet. The baby's
58:08name is Shepherd. I do not know why. The
58:11name was in my head when he came out,
58:13and it is his name now. Tanzy lifted her
58:15eyes. Jasper was looking at the page,
58:18too. His face had gone a particular
58:20shade of pale that a man's face goes
58:22when he recognizes something he did not
58:24expect to recognize. She asked if he
58:27knew that name. He opened his mouth,
58:30closed it, opened it again.
58:34Laurel Lee Pembrey. Yes, his mother, he
58:37explained after a long moment, had a
58:39photograph of a girl named Laura Lee
58:41Pembrey in the back of her high school
58:42yearbook. 1988, Renelier Central. His
58:47mother was in the same photograph. They
58:49had their arms around each other's
58:51shoulders. His mother had told him three
58:53times in his life not to ask about the
58:56other girl in that picture. Tanzy sat
58:59back on her heels. Three times when he
59:02was 10, when he was 17, when he had
59:05turned 30. What had she said when he
59:08asked? She had said that was a sadness
59:11that was not hers to tell. Then she had
59:14changed the subject. They looked at each
59:17other. The attic of the house ticked
59:19around them the way an old house ticks
59:21when the temperature drops in the
59:23afternoon. Tanzy lifted the first of the
59:26two VHS tapes, held it in her palm,
59:29turned it over on the white paper label
59:32in blue ballpoint in the same hand. PG
59:35visit July 7th, 1992.
59:39Shepherd 21 months. The second tape was
59:42labeled in the same hand. Do not watch
59:44alone. Tanzy set both tapes down very
59:46carefully. She lifted the manila
59:48envelope. She did not open it. Not
59:51today. Okay. She needed to think. Okay.
59:56They put everything back in the biscuit
59:58tin except the notebook which Tanzy held
1:00:00against her chest as they went down the
1:00:01stairs. Jasper did not say anything
1:00:04else. He put on his jacket at the door.
1:00:06He turned his hand on the knob. His
1:00:09mother's name, he reminded her, was
1:00:11Ingred. She lived in Renelier. if Tanzy
1:00:14wanted him to ask her. Not yet.
1:00:18Okay. Soon. Okay. He left. The dust
1:00:23settled. Shiloh came out of the kitchen
1:00:26with her arms wrapped around herself.
1:00:28She wanted to know if it was bad. Not
1:00:31bad for them. Bad for somebody.
1:00:34Yes. Somebody who had done something.
1:00:38Yes. Good.
1:00:41The flat way she said that word made
1:00:43Tanzy look at her for a long time. They
1:00:46did not watch the tapes that night. That
1:00:48night, Tanzy lit a fire in the stove
1:00:50that Jasper had cleared, and she cooked
1:00:52rice and a can of black beans she had
1:00:54bought at the Shell station, and she and
1:00:56Shiloh ate on the porch steps with their
1:00:58backs to the open door. The sun went
1:01:01down red and fast. The corn turned the
1:01:04color of blood for 7 minutes and then
1:01:06went to black. In the dark, Shiloh said
1:01:09that Tanzy was different today, was she?
1:01:12She was not scared of the house anymore.
1:01:14Tanzy thought about that. She was scared
1:01:16of a different thing now. They watched
1:01:19the tapes on Monday in the back of the
1:01:21Dale Public Library because the library
1:01:23had a VCR behind a plywood panel in the
1:01:26AV room and because Petra Denning did
1:01:29not ask questions when Tanzy asked to
1:01:30use it for an hour. Petra set them up,
1:01:33closed the door, and went back to the
1:01:35desk. Shiloh waited at the house. Jasper
1:01:38came. He brought his mother. Ingred
1:01:40Hollerman was 54. Hair the color of iron
1:01:43filings, a long face, eyes the exact
1:01:46shade of her sons. She wore a navy
1:01:49raincoat and clean New Balance sneakers,
1:01:52and she carried a cloth shopping bag
1:01:53with two apples in it, as if she had
1:01:55been on her way somewhere else, and had
1:01:57agreed to come without telling the
1:01:59person she had been on her way to meet.
1:02:02She had not spoken more than four words
1:02:04since Jasper had brought her in. Tanzy
1:02:06pushed the first tape into the VCR. The
1:02:09screen rolled once, then settled. The
1:02:12camera was handheld.
1:02:14VHS resolution. The color washed. The
1:02:18date stamp in the corner read July 7th,
1:02:211992.
1:02:23The angle was low as if the camera was
1:02:25sitting on a kitchen counter. The room
1:02:28on the screen was the parlor Tany now
1:02:30lived in. The hearthstone was unbroken.
1:02:34There was a sofa, a rag rug, a play pin
1:02:37in the corner. In the frame, Laura Lee,
1:02:4022 years old, hair longer now in a loose
1:02:43braid, sitting on the sofa, holding a
1:02:46toddler in a onesie.
1:02:49The toddler was blonde, cheeks fat with
1:02:51being a toddler playing with a wooden
1:02:53spoon.
1:02:54>> [clears throat]
1:02:54>> A man stood in the doorway, mid30s, suit
1:02:57jacket, no tie, a leather doctor's bag
1:03:00in one hand. Laurel Lee's voice, off
1:03:03camera adjacent, pitched carefully.
1:03:06He had said the man would come alone. He
1:03:10was alone, the man answered. Clayton was
1:03:12staying in Indianapolis. She knew that.
1:03:15She did not want him touching the child.
1:03:18Laura Lee, please. She did not. Then
1:03:21hold his hand, the man said.
1:03:23He would take the sample from the inside
1:03:25of the cheek. The boy would not feel
1:03:28anything. It was a cotton swab.
1:03:32Laura Lee looked down at the toddler.
1:03:34The toddler looked up at her. She
1:03:37nodded. The man set the doctor's bag on
1:03:40the floor. He opened it. He took out a
1:03:43clear plastic tube. He crossed the room.
1:03:47He knelt in front of the child.
1:03:50Shepherd. Shepherd.
1:03:52Open your mouth for me, buddy. The child
1:03:54opened his mouth. The man swabbed the
1:03:57inside of the cheek twice, capped the
1:03:59tube, labeled the tube with a pen, stood
1:04:02up, put the tube in his bag, closed the
1:04:05bag. The results would be in a week, and
1:04:08then and then they would decide. They
1:04:11would decide, he and Clayton, not her.
1:04:14The man did not answer that. He left.
1:04:17The tape kept rolling for another 40
1:04:19seconds.
1:04:20Laura Lee sat on the sofa holding
1:04:22Shepherd. She did not cry. She looked
1:04:26for a long time into the lens of the
1:04:28camera, which is to say into the eyes of
1:04:31whoever would someday find the tape.
1:04:34Then she reached forward and turned the
1:04:36camera off. The screen went to blue.
1:04:40In the AV room of the Chatwick Memorial
1:04:42Library, the hum of the VCR was the only
1:04:45sound for a long moment. Ingred
1:04:47Hollererman put her hand over her mouth.
1:04:49She did not take it away for almost a
1:04:52minute. When she took it away, she said
1:04:54very quietly. "Oh, Laura,"
1:04:59Jasper looked at his mother. "Mom, the
1:05:02man on the tape in the jacket."
1:05:06"Yes,
1:05:07that was Apprentice Granville." She did
1:05:10not say, "I think it is." She said,
1:05:12"That is the way a person who knew him
1:05:16said it." Tanzy felt something move
1:05:18inside her chest that was not fear and
1:05:20was not anger. It was closer to the
1:05:23feeling a person gets at the top of a
1:05:25very long hill when the car behind them
1:05:27has slipped out of gear and is beginning
1:05:29to roll. She wanted to know slowly who
1:05:32Apprentice Granville was.
1:05:35Ingred closed her eyes. Apprentice
1:05:38Granville, she said, was the brother of
1:05:40Ellington Granville. and Ellington
1:05:43Granville. She stopped, swallowed.
1:05:46Ellington Granville was the leading
1:05:47major party nominee for United States
1:05:49Senator from the state of Indiana. His
1:05:52face was on every billboard between
1:05:54there and Indianapolis.
1:05:56The election was in 3 weeks. Nobody
1:05:58spoke for a long time. Tanzy ejected the
1:06:01tape from the VCR, put it back in its
1:06:04paper sleeve, set it on the table beside
1:06:07the second tape, the one that said, "Do
1:06:09not watch alone."
1:06:11She did not play the second tape. Not
1:06:13yet. She turned instead to Ingred.
1:06:16Laurel Lee had been her friend, her best
1:06:18friend from sixth grade until she was
1:06:2118. What had happened to her? Ingred
1:06:24looked at her hands. The two apples sat
1:06:26in the cloth bag on the floor by her
1:06:28feet. Laurel's parents had put her out.
1:06:32Ingred said
1:06:34in June of 1989,
1:06:37she had been four months pregnant. She
1:06:40would not say by whom. She had left town
1:06:43on foot with a plastic bag of clothes.
1:06:47Ingred had gone to the bus station. She
1:06:49had gone to Laurel's aunts. She had
1:06:52driven the roads out toward Monaceel
1:06:54calling her name. She had been 18 years
1:06:57old. She had not known what else to do.
1:07:00She had never seen her again. She had
1:07:02never looked for her again. She had
1:07:05looked for 2 years. Then the Granvilles
1:07:08had bought her father's seed dealership
1:07:10out from under him. And then her father
1:07:13had told her in the kitchen of the house
1:07:15they were about to lose that if she ever
1:07:17spoke the name Laurel Pembrey in this
1:07:20county again, he would put her on a bus
1:07:22to his sisters in Terraote.
1:07:25And she had been 18 years old and she
1:07:28had stopped. She looked up. She had
1:07:31stopped looking.
1:07:33Ingred, she had stopped. She started to
1:07:36cry quietly without shaking. Jasper put
1:07:40his hand on his mother's shoulder. He
1:07:43did not speak. Tanzy watched them and
1:07:46she understood with the clear, bright
1:07:47understanding of a person who had been
1:07:49noticed for 5 years, but never seen that
1:07:51she was looking at what silence costs a
1:07:53person over 33 years. It cost them their
1:07:57face. It cost them the shape of the
1:07:59apples they were carrying when they
1:08:00heard. It cost them the breath in the
1:08:02room. She stood. Ingred was not the
1:08:05villain of this story. Ingred looked at
1:08:08her. She had stopped looking because an
1:08:1118-year-old girl in 1991 in rural
1:08:14Indiana could not fight a bank. Nobody
1:08:17could. Not alone. She was not the
1:08:19villain. Then who was? That Tany
1:08:23promised was what they were going to
1:08:24find out. They left the library at 4:30
1:08:28in the afternoon. Petra did not ask how
1:08:31it had gone. Petra looked at their faces
1:08:34and handed each of them a paper cup of
1:08:36tea without being asked. Jasper drove
1:08:38his mother home to Renelier. Tany drove
1:08:41back to Buckthornne Lane. Shiloh was on
1:08:44the porch. She had the wool blanket
1:08:46around her shoulders. She stood up when
1:08:48the neon pulled in. She did not ask what
1:08:51had happened. She waited. Tanzy got out
1:08:54of the car. She walked up the ruts. She
1:08:57stopped at the bottom step. She had
1:08:59something to tell Shiloh. she warned and
1:09:01she needed the girl to understand she
1:09:03was not lying. Okay. There was going to
1:09:05be a storm coming to this house, not
1:09:08weather. People, reporters, maybe
1:09:12lawyers.
1:09:14A man in a white truck. Maybe more than
1:09:16one. It was going to get loud here.
1:09:20Shiloh considered.
1:09:22Was she in the way? No. Shiloh was the
1:09:26thing Tany was going to protect.
1:09:29Shiloh and the notebook in that order.
1:09:33Oh. The girl sat back down on the step
1:09:37slowly. The way a person sits down when
1:09:40they have just been told they matter.
1:09:42That night the electricity went out at
1:09:44the farmhouse on Buckthornne Lane. There
1:09:47was no electricity at the farmhouse on
1:09:49Buckthorn Lane. There never had been not
1:09:52since 1996.
1:09:54Tany had been running on a camp lantern
1:09:56and a wood stove. But at the end of
1:09:58Buckthornne Lane, where the private line
1:10:00came off County Road 400 West to the
1:10:03Pentecost farm and to two other houses
1:10:05down section, a transformer blew. The
1:10:09pole did not catch fire. The pole was
1:10:11simply dark. By 11 that night, three
1:10:14neighbors had reported it. By morning,
1:10:16the power company had been out. The
1:10:18company said the transformer appeared to
1:10:20have been struck by a projectile. The
1:10:23company shrugged and put in a new one.
1:10:26Normal service resumed by noon. Except
1:10:28at the same time on Wednesday morning,
1:10:31the Pentecost family received a
1:10:32certified letter from the attorneys of
1:10:35Granville Agricultural Holdings
1:10:37informing them that the easement for
1:10:38their shared well pipeline which crossed
1:10:40the parcel at the end of Buckthorn Lane
1:10:43was being revoked as of 30 days from
1:10:45receipt because the parcel had changed
1:10:47hands and the new owner had not affirmed
1:10:50the easement in writing. By noon
1:10:51Wednesday, Earl Pentecost walked up
1:10:53Tanzy's ruts with his cap in his hand.
1:10:56He was a decent man, 61 years old. He
1:11:00had 500 head of beef cattle and a well
1:11:03pipeline that had crossed her property
1:11:04for 41 years. He did not raise his
1:11:08voice. He did not threaten her. He laid
1:11:11the letter on the top porch step. He did
1:11:14not know what she had gotten herself
1:11:15[clears throat] into. He told her
1:11:16plainly. But if that water stopped, he
1:11:19lost his herd by February. He was asking
1:11:22her, "Please
1:11:25to fix this." Tany picked up the letter.
1:11:28She read it twice. "She was going to fix
1:11:30this." She told him, "But not the way
1:11:33they wanted her to." She did not say
1:11:35more. He nodded. He went back down the
1:11:39ruts. He did not look back.
1:11:43That evening, she drove alone to the
1:11:44Shell station on the north edge of
1:11:46Daleville. She parked in the far back
1:11:49corner of the lot under a sodium light
1:11:51that buzzed. She took out her phone. It
1:11:54had been dead for 9 days. She had
1:11:57charged it that afternoon on a cigarette
1:11:59lighter adapter Jasper had given her.
1:12:02She had not opened it. She opened it
1:12:04now.
1:12:06411 text messages from one person. She
1:12:11did not read them. She did not scroll.
1:12:14She went to the contact list. She found
1:12:17the name. She tapped it. She listened to
1:12:21the ring. Her thumb hovered over the red
1:12:24end call button. One ring. Two rings.
1:12:28Three. She almost let it go to
1:12:30voicemail. That would have been easier.
1:12:33That would have let her say she tried.
1:12:36She did not let it go to voicemail. On
1:12:39the fourth ring, she pressed end. She
1:12:41sat in the car, her hands shaking on her
1:12:44thighs, because what she had almost done
1:12:46in the parking lot of a Shell station in
1:12:48a town she had been in for 9 days was
1:12:51call the man she had left,
1:12:53not to go back, to hear his voice, to
1:12:57hear the only voice she had heard inside
1:12:59the walls of her own home for 5 years
1:13:02because she had forgotten somewhere
1:13:04between Columbus and Dale that any other
1:13:06voice could reach her. She put the phone
1:13:08face down on the passenger seat. She
1:13:11breathed in for a count of four, out for
1:13:13a count of six. She picked the phone
1:13:15back up. She opened the contact list
1:13:18again. She scrolled down past Garrison's
1:13:21name, past her mother's old number,
1:13:23which she had never deleted and would
1:13:25never delete, down to V. Varity
1:13:28Everheart,
1:13:30Oregon. She had not spoken to her aunt
1:13:33in 3 years. The last call had ended with
1:13:36Garrison walking into the kitchen and
1:13:38taking the phone out of her hand. She
1:13:41tapped the number. She listened to the
1:13:43ring. Varity picked up on the second
1:13:45ring, which was the ring of a woman who
1:13:47had been sitting by her phone for 3
1:13:49years in case her niece ever called.
1:13:51Tanzy. Just that, just her name. Tanzy's
1:13:56throat closed. For a long time, she
1:13:59could not speak. The sodium light buzzed
1:14:02above the car. Aunt V. Her aunt wanted
1:14:06to know where she was. Indiana. Was she
1:14:10safe? Yes. Was she alone? No. Was she
1:14:15with him? No. A long breath on the other
1:14:18end. A long, long breath that sounded
1:14:21like a woman putting down a weight she
1:14:23had been holding for 3 years and not
1:14:25knowing how to set down.
1:14:28Okay.
1:14:29Aunt V.
1:14:32Yes. Tanzy explained in a voice that was
1:14:35not steady that she needed her aunt to
1:14:37just talk about anything.
1:14:40For a minute, she did not want to say
1:14:43anything else. She just needed to hear a
1:14:46voice that was not his and was not her
1:14:48own. Varity was quiet for a half second.
1:14:51Then she told her about the roodendrrons
1:14:53blooming late this year. about the deer
1:14:56getting into the lettuce in May. about
1:14:58the fence she had put up. About how her
1:15:01uncle had hated fences but had been gone
1:15:0311 years and she was tired of deer.
1:15:05About the woman next door's cat having
1:15:07five kittens. About the orange one she
1:15:10had decided to keep even though she did
1:15:12not want a cat. About how she was going
1:15:14to name him Perch because he climbed the
1:15:16back of the couch and sat on it like a
1:15:18bird. Tanzy started to laugh, which
1:15:21turned almost immediately into crying,
1:15:23which turned immediately after that back
1:15:25into laughing. She listened to Varity
1:15:27talk about roodendrrons and lettuce and
1:15:30a cat named Perch for nine more minutes.
1:15:32She did not tell Varity about the house
1:15:35or the notebook or the Polaroid of
1:15:38Shepherd at 5 months or the tape of
1:15:41Apprentice Granville taking a DNA swab
1:15:44from a toddler in 1992
1:15:47or the 14-year-old girl asleep on a
1:15:49Goodwill blanket on the second floor of
1:15:51a farmhouse that was now legally tanies.
1:15:54She told Varity none of it. At the end
1:15:57of the 9 minutes, she said that she had
1:15:59to go. She was okay. She would call
1:16:02again. Tanzy. Yes. Stay on the road. Her
1:16:07aunt said, "Don't come back." That was
1:16:09the sentence that would stay with Tanzy
1:16:11for the rest of her life. "Stay on the
1:16:14road. Don't come back." She hung up. She
1:16:18put the phone face down again. She
1:16:20started the neon. She drove back to
1:16:23Buckthornne Lane. Shiloh was asleep on
1:16:26the parlor floor by the wood stove
1:16:28wrapped in the wool blanket. Tanzy
1:16:30stepped around her quietly. She went
1:16:33into the kitchen. She put water on for
1:16:35tea. While it heated, she sat at the
1:16:38small table Jasper had set up for her
1:16:40from an old door and two saw horses. She
1:16:43opened the spiral notebook of Laurel Lee
1:16:45Pimry, age 19, to the first page. She
1:16:48picked up a pen. In the margin of the
1:16:51first entry, in her own hand, she wrote,
1:16:53"I hear you." She closed the notebook.
1:16:57She drank her tea. Outside, the corn
1:16:59moved in the dark, and somewhere in a
1:17:01house she had not yet entered in a town
1:17:0352 mi south called Bloomington, a man
1:17:06who had been named Shepherd by a
1:17:0819-year-old girl in 1990, was grading
1:17:11the midterm exams of his high school
1:17:13music theory students. And he did not
1:17:15yet know that a stranger had just
1:17:17written three words in a notebook that
1:17:19would in 6 days time change every other
1:17:21word he had written for the rest of his
1:17:22life. Thursday morning, Tanzy watched
1:17:25the second tape alone. She had told
1:17:27Shiloh she was running into town. She
1:17:30had told Jasper the same. She had driven
1:17:32instead as far as the end of the ruts.
1:17:35And then she had come back because she
1:17:36could not watch what was on that tape in
1:17:38a public library. She needed the house
1:17:41around her when she did it. She needed
1:17:43walls that had held the person who had
1:17:45recorded it. She put the tape in the VCR
1:17:48Jasper had carried in from his van the
1:17:50night before, hooked to a small
1:17:51secondhand television powered by an
1:17:54extension cord run down to the Pentecost
1:17:56pump line. Because the Pentecost line
1:17:58still had electricity, and Earl
1:18:00Pentecost had unprompted run her a drop
1:18:03before dawn with a note that said,
1:18:05"Until this is sorted, payment is zero."
1:18:09She sat on the floor. The parlor was
1:18:12cold. She did not light the stove. She
1:18:15pressed play. The screen rolled.
1:18:18Settled. Laurel in the frame. Older in
1:18:22this one. 23. Her hair was short now,
1:18:25cut jagged at the jaw the way Shiloh's
1:18:27was now, which was a coincidence that
1:18:29would make Tanzy's throat close every
1:18:31time she thought of it later. Laurel was
1:18:34sitting on the floor of the same parlor,
1:18:36cross-legged in a man's gray sweatshirt,
1:18:38holding the camera at arms length, so
1:18:40her own face filled most of the frame.
1:18:43She looked tired. She looked more than
1:18:45tired, finished. She spoke directly into
1:18:48the lens. If this tape was being
1:18:50watched, her name was Laura Lee Pembrey.
1:18:54She had been born May 12th, 1970 in
1:18:56Renolier, Indiana. The boy on the other
1:18:59tape was her son. His name was Shephard.
1:19:02He was 3 years old and 10 months. He had
1:19:06been born in this house on October 8th,
1:19:081990.
1:19:10His father was Ellington Vance Granville
1:19:12III. His uncle, who had taken the DNA
1:19:15sample, was Dr. Apprentice Granville.
1:19:18The lab that had run the sample was
1:19:20Meridian Diagnostic of Indianapolis. The
1:19:23case number had been on the paperwork
1:19:24Apprentice had left here by accident on
1:19:26July 7th, 1992.
1:19:29She had that paperwork. It was in the
1:19:31envelope with this tape. She stopped.
1:19:34She breathed in. She was leaving
1:19:36Shepherd with an adoption attorney in
1:19:38Indianapolis on August 2nd. She could
1:19:41not keep him safe here anymore. The
1:19:43Granvilles had stopped offering money
1:19:45and started offering other things. A
1:19:48week ago, she had woken up to a man
1:19:49standing in the yard with a flashlight.
1:19:52He had not come inside. He had wanted
1:19:54her to know he could. She looked away
1:19:57from the camera for a moment, looked
1:19:58back. She was recording this, she said,
1:20:01so that Shepherd could find it if he
1:20:04wanted to. If he did not want to. She
1:20:07was also recording it so that she had
1:20:09not lain down. Mama had told her once
1:20:13that the worst thing a woman could do
1:20:14was lie down for the people who told
1:20:17her, she did not deserve to stand. She
1:20:20was not going to lie down. She leaned
1:20:24toward the camera. If anyone watching
1:20:26this tape was not Shepherd, if anyone
1:20:29watching was a stranger, please finish
1:20:32what she could not. The paperwork was
1:20:35real. The sample was real. The lab
1:20:38result was in the envelope.
1:20:40She was going to put the envelope under
1:20:42the wardrobe in the master bedroom.
1:20:45She was going to put the tapes with it.
1:20:47She was going to put the notebook with
1:20:49it. And then she was going to leave this
1:20:52house. And she was going to become a
1:20:54different person because she had to.
1:20:58She paused one more time. Her son's name
1:21:01was Shepherd. If somebody found him,
1:21:04please tell him she had not stopped
1:21:07loving him. Not for one second of 30
1:21:09years. If she got 30 years, she did not
1:21:13know if she would get 30 years. She was
1:21:15tired. But if she did, she reached up,
1:21:19turned the camera off, the screen went
1:21:21to blue. Tanzy sat on the floor of her
1:21:24parlor, and she did not move for a very
1:21:27long time. Then she stood up, walked to
1:21:29the kitchen, washed her face in the pump
1:21:32water from the sink, walked back,
1:21:34ejected the tape, put it in its paper
1:21:37sleeve, set both tapes side by side on
1:21:39the plank table. She opened the manila
1:21:42envelope inside a typed laboratory
1:21:44report on letterhead that had stopped
1:21:46being used in 1998.
1:21:49Meridian Diagnostic Services 4,400N
1:21:55Meridian Street, Indianapolis in Case
1:21:58number across the top. Date of
1:22:01collection, July 7th, 1992.
1:22:05Date of report, July 15th, 1992.
1:22:09Two names, alleged father, Granville,
1:22:13EV. Alleged child, Pembry S. below in
1:22:18the summary line in plain black type.
1:22:21Probability of paternity 99.994%.
1:22:25Also in the envelope, a one-page letter
1:22:27on Cream stationary with the Granville
1:22:29family crest at the top dated August
1:22:311st, 1992 from a Chicago law firm
1:22:34offering Laura Lee Pimbry the sum of
1:22:37$75,000
1:22:39in exchange for her signed agreement to
1:22:42relinquish all current and future
1:22:43parental claims to surrender custody to
1:22:46a closed adoption agency of the firm
1:22:49selection and never to initiate or
1:22:52encourage contact with the child or with
1:22:54any member of of the Granville family
1:22:56for the remainder of her natural life.
1:22:58Laura Lee had not signed the letter. The
1:23:01copy in the envelope was the original.
1:23:04Her refusal was itself the evidence.
1:23:07Underneath that letter, a folded page of
1:23:09lined notebook paper torn from the
1:23:11spiral.
1:23:13In Laurel's hand, they offered the
1:23:15money. I did not take it. I gave him up
1:23:18anyway because he was going to be safer
1:23:20with strangers than he was going to be
1:23:22with me. because I could not fight them.
1:23:26Because somebody who looks like me
1:23:27cannot fight people who look like them.
1:23:30Not in 1994,
1:23:32not in Indiana, not alone.
1:23:36But I did not take the money because
1:23:38taking the money would have made what
1:23:40they did a sale. And it was not a sale.
1:23:43It was a theft. And someday somebody is
1:23:46going to find these pages and they are
1:23:48going to understand the difference.
1:23:49Tanzy folded the page, put it back in
1:23:52the envelope, closed the envelope, set
1:23:55her hand flat on top of it. She sat at
1:23:58her plank table with her hand on the
1:24:00envelope for an hour. Then she picked up
1:24:02her phone. She called Petra Denning at
1:24:04the library. Petra Tanzy. She needed the
1:24:09name of an investigative reporter at the
1:24:11Indianapolis Star. She needed a woman.
1:24:15She needed somebody who had written
1:24:16about rural Indiana before. She needed
1:24:19her by that afternoon. Petra did not ask
1:24:22why. 20 minutes. Petra called back in
1:24:2618.
1:24:27The reporter's name was Marin Oilaren.
1:24:31She had been at the Star 14 years.
1:24:34She had covered the opioid epidemic in
1:24:37southern Indiana in 2018. She had
1:24:40covered the 2021 nursing home scandals
1:24:42in Teroot.
1:24:44She was 39 years old. She was Nigerian
1:24:47American.
1:24:48She did not take meetings at coffee
1:24:50shops. Tany drove to Indianapolis the
1:24:53next morning in her mother's 2003 Dodge
1:24:56Neon with the biscuit tin of Polaroids
1:24:58and notebook and tapes on the passenger
1:25:00seat beside her and a $20 bill from Earl
1:25:04Pentecost tucked in the visor that he
1:25:06had put there for gas and would not take
1:25:08back. Marin Oaren met hair in a
1:25:11conference room at the stars downtown
1:25:13office at 10 9 on a Friday morning.
1:25:16Marin had hair in short twists, tortoise
1:25:20shell glasses, a navy blazer, a yellow
1:25:23legal pad, and a cup of coffee she did
1:25:26not drink. She did not shake Tanzy's
1:25:29hand. She did not make small talk.
1:25:32Petra, she opened, had said a sentence
1:25:34to her on the phone yesterday that she
1:25:36had been thinking about all night. She
1:25:38wanted to hear what Tany had. Tanzy told
1:25:42her she started with the $81. She did
1:25:45not start with Garrison. She would not
1:25:47start with Garrison. Garrison was not
1:25:50the story. Laura Lee was the story.
1:25:52Shephard was the story. Ingred
1:25:55Hollererman stopped breath in the AV
1:25:56room of the Chatwick Memorial Library
1:25:58was the story. She laid it out in order.
1:26:02The address mapping job, the house, the
1:26:04man in the white truck, the shared well,
1:26:07the transformer, the notebook, the two
1:26:11tapes, the paternity report, the refused
1:26:15$75,000.
1:26:16Marin Oeleron did not interrupt. She
1:26:19filled seven pages of the yellow legal
1:26:22pad. She drank none of her coffee.
1:26:25When Tanzy stopped talking, Marin looked
1:26:28at her over the tops of her glasses for
1:26:30a long, long moment. She wanted to be
1:26:33sure Tanzy understood. The man whose
1:26:36name was on that paternity report was 3
1:26:38weeks from winning a United States
1:26:40Senate seat by six points. Tanzy
1:26:43understood that his family had the
1:26:45fourth largest private banking fortune
1:26:47in the state of Indiana. She understood
1:26:49that if the star put this on the front
1:26:52page the following Wednesday, Tany would
1:26:54be followed. Her house would be
1:26:56photographed from drones. The
1:26:57Granville's lawyers would try everything
1:26:59short of arson to make her disappear and
1:27:03the national press would descend on Cass
1:27:05County within 6 hours of publication.
1:27:08She understood that Marin Oellaran would
1:27:11not publish this unless she could
1:27:12independently verify the lab report,
1:27:14confirm the identity of the woman in the
1:27:16tape, locate the son if he was still
1:27:18living, and give the Granville campaign
1:27:2024 hours to respond. Understood.
1:27:24And then after all of that, the reporter
1:27:26asked the question Tanzy had not
1:27:27expected. Why was she doing this? Tanzy
1:27:31had been ready for most of the other
1:27:33questions. She had not been ready for
1:27:35that one. She sat with it because Laura
1:27:38Lee had not signed the paper. That was
1:27:41an answer about Laura Lee.
1:27:44Yes.
1:27:45Marin had asked about Tanzy.
1:27:48Tanzy thought about the Shell station
1:27:50parking lot, about the thumb that had
1:27:53hovered over the green call button for
1:27:5511 minutes, about the sodium light
1:27:58buzzing above the car, about Varity's
1:28:01voice saying stay on the road because
1:28:04she had been a person who had been told
1:28:05she did not deserve to stand, and nobody
1:28:08had written it down, so nobody could
1:28:11ever prove it. And when she had read
1:28:13Laura Lee's notebook, she had understood
1:28:15that Laura Lee had written it down for
1:28:17every single one of them. Marin Oilaren
1:28:21closed the legal pad a week. No other
1:28:24news organization, no posts online, no
1:28:27going anywhere alone after dark. The
1:28:29reporter would call her at the library,
1:28:31not on her cell. If Tanzy needed to
1:28:34reach her, a landline, not a mobile.
1:28:36Understood, Tanzy. Yes. Did the son know
1:28:40yet? No, he needed to. This week before
1:28:45the story ran, he deserved to be the
1:28:47second person in Indiana who knew, not
1:28:50the 10,000th. She drove back to
1:28:52Buckthorn Lane at a speed that got her a
1:28:54warning from a state trooper in Typton
1:28:56County, who looked at her face through
1:28:58the driver's side window and decided,
1:29:00for reasons he would never be able to
1:29:02articulate, to tell her to slow down and
1:29:04let her go. Shepherd Haynes turned out
1:29:07not to be hard to find. His name was on
1:29:10the faculty page of Bloomington North
1:29:11High School. His photograph was the
1:29:14small square beside his entry in the
1:29:16music department directory. Dark hair,
1:29:18closecropped salt in it at 34. A patient
1:29:21mouth, eyes that in the photograph
1:29:24looked directly at the camera the way
1:29:26his mother had looked directly at the
1:29:28camera in the second tape. Tany did not
1:29:30call the school. She drove to
1:29:32Bloomington on a Monday afternoon. She
1:29:35parked in a visitor's lot at 3:20 when
1:29:37the last bell had already rung and the
1:29:39lot was emptying. She waited. At 3:45,
1:29:44Shepherd Haynes came out a side door
1:29:45with a canvas satchel over his shoulder
1:29:47and a travel mug in his hand. She got
1:29:50out of the neon. She walked toward him
1:29:53across the lot. He saw her coming. He
1:29:56slowed polite the way teachers slow when
1:29:58a stranger approaches on school
1:30:00property. He did not look afraid. He did
1:30:03not look suspicious. He looked mostly
1:30:06tired in the way a man who has graded
1:30:08papers until midnight for 12 years looks
1:30:10tired. He could help her, he offered.
1:30:14Mr. Haynes. Yes. She introduced herself.
1:30:18She had driven down from Cass County.
1:30:21She needed 20 minutes of his time. Not
1:30:23here. Somewhere private. She promised
1:30:26she was not selling anything. She
1:30:29promised she was not from a church. She
1:30:31had a photograph in her pocket and she
1:30:33thought the woman holding him in it was
1:30:35his biological mother. Shepherd Haynes
1:30:38did not move for a long time. Then
1:30:40carefully he told her to follow him.
1:30:42They went to a coffee shop two blocks
1:30:44from the school. He did not order
1:30:46anything. She did not either. They sat
1:30:49at a corner table with their coats on.
1:30:51She took the Polaroid out of her jacket
1:30:53pocket, set it between them, turned it
1:30:56so he could read the back. He read the
1:30:59back. He turned the photograph over. He
1:31:02looked at the young woman with the wheat
1:31:04colored hair. He looked at the baby in
1:31:07her arms. He looked at it for a very
1:31:09long time. He wanted to know when it had
1:31:12been taken. March of 1991. Where on the
1:31:16front porch of a farmhouse at the end of
1:31:18Buckthornne Lane, 12 miles northwest of
1:31:22Renolier.
1:31:24Who had taken it? They did not know.
1:31:28Tanzy thought it had been a friend of
1:31:29hers named Ingred.
1:31:31Ingred did not remember taking it, but
1:31:34her handwriting was in the yearbook her
1:31:36son kept at his house, and a woman in
1:31:38that yearbook had the same hand. He set
1:31:41the photograph down. His hands were
1:31:43shaking. "His adoptive parents," he said
1:31:46after a moment had told him when he was
1:31:49eight that his biological mother had
1:31:51died when he was very young. They had
1:31:54told him her name had been Lorie. Her
1:31:57name was Laura Lee Tanzy, corrected
1:31:59gently. And she was alive. He let the
1:32:03words sit on the table for several
1:32:05seconds without touching them. Alive,
1:32:08Tanzy repeated.
1:32:10Living in Oaklair, Wisconsin, working at
1:32:13a hair salon called Thistle and Vine.
1:32:16She had lived there since September of
1:32:181994.
1:32:19She had never been married. She had
1:32:21never had another child. She went by the
1:32:24name Marold Keane. Tanzy knew this
1:32:27because the reporter at the Indianapolis
1:32:29Star had found her on Saturday with a
1:32:31public record search that had taken her
1:32:3320 minutes once Tanzy had told her the
1:32:35name on the notebook. Shepherd Haynes
1:32:38put his hand over his mouth. He did not
1:32:40cry in the coffee shop. He was the kind
1:32:43of man who had learned from 34 years of
1:32:45being a very good adopted son in a very
1:32:48attentive adoptive family not to cry
1:32:51where strangers could see. But he kept
1:32:54his hand over his mouth for a long time.
1:32:57When he finally lowered it, he wanted to
1:32:59know who his father was. She should sit
1:33:02down for this, Tany.
1:33:04He was sitting. His name was Ellington
1:33:07Granville. He was the leading major
1:33:09party nominee for the United States
1:33:11Senate from Indiana. His family was why
1:33:14Shepard's mother had run. His brother
1:33:16had taken a DNA swab from Shephard in
1:33:191992.
1:33:20They had the videotape.
1:33:23Shepherd Haynes sat very still.
1:33:26The election was in two weeks, he said
1:33:28after a long beat. His voice had gone
1:33:31flat.
1:33:33Yes, the billboards with his face in
1:33:35front of the corn. He went on slowly as
1:33:38if his mouth needed to make all the
1:33:39pieces real before the rest of him
1:33:41could. His hand went down to the table.
1:33:45He drove past one of them every day on
1:33:47State Road 37.
1:33:49Tanzy nodded. He had voted for the man
1:33:52in the early absentee, he said. A short
1:33:55bark of a laugh came out of him. The
1:33:58laugh of a man who had just been told
1:34:00the story of his own life and did not
1:34:02know what else to do with the sound
1:34:04coming out of him. Tany did not laugh.
1:34:07She waited. He wanted to know after what
1:34:10she wanted from him.
1:34:12Nothing. She had come here because he
1:34:15deserved to know before the rest of the
1:34:16country did. The reporter would run the
1:34:19story next Wednesday. Tanzy was asking
1:34:22him one thing and only one thing. Did he
1:34:24want to meet her before then in person
1:34:28at the house where he had been born? His
1:34:30mother. Yes, his biological mother.
1:34:32Agical. The woman Tany corrected who had
1:34:35kept him until she could not keep him
1:34:37safe. The woman who had refused $75,000
1:34:41in 1992 because she had not wanted what
1:34:44they had done to her to be a sale.
1:34:47that mother.
1:34:49Shepherd Haynes looked out the window of
1:34:51the coffee shop at Bloomington, Indiana
1:34:53on a Monday afternoon in late October,
1:34:55and he said the one word Tany had hoped
1:34:57for and had not allowed herself to
1:34:59expect. Yes, they met on a Saturday.
1:35:02Maragold Keen drove down from Wisconsin
1:35:04in a 2015 Honda Civic that she had
1:35:07bought used in 2019 and had paid off 11
1:35:10months ago. She was 54 years old. Her
1:35:14hair was not weak colored anymore.
1:35:17It was a soft silver that she had let
1:35:19come in on its own because she would
1:35:21later tell Tany
1:35:23making other women's hair look like
1:35:25something it was not, and she had earned
1:35:27the right to look like herself. She
1:35:29arrived at Buckthornne Lane at 11:00 in
1:35:31the morning on the first Saturday of
1:35:33November.
1:35:34Jasper met her at the end of the ruts.
1:35:38He did not try to speak. He just opened
1:35:41the Honda's driver's side door and
1:35:43offered her his hand and she took it and
1:35:46stood up out of the car and she looked
1:35:48at the house. She looked at the house
1:35:50for a full minute. The chimney was still
1:35:53standing. She observed to no one to
1:35:55everyone. She walked up the ruts, her
1:35:58hand on Jasper's elbow. She was steady.
1:36:02She was not steady. She was both. Tanzy
1:36:06was on the porch. Maragold climbed the
1:36:08steps. She put her hand on the
1:36:10doorframe, pressed her palm flat against
1:36:13the wood, closed her eyes, stood that
1:36:16way for 10 seconds. Then she opened her
1:36:19eyes and thanked Tanzy for not tearing
1:36:21it down. Tanzy had only bought it 3
1:36:24weeks ago.
1:36:26Then thank you, Maragold said for the 3
1:36:28weeks. They went inside. Shepherd was
1:36:32already there. He had driven up from
1:36:34Bloomington the night before. He had
1:36:36slept in a motel in Loganport. He had
1:36:39arrived at the house at 7:00 in the
1:36:40morning and had walked through every
1:36:42room alone slowly, the way a man walks
1:36:44through a church he used to attend as a
1:36:46child. He had been in the kitchen when
1:36:48Maragold came up the porch steps. And
1:36:51when she came through the door, he stood
1:36:53up from the table that Jasper had made
1:36:55out of the old door and the two saw
1:36:57horses, and he did not move. Maragold
1:36:59stopped in the parlor doorway. She
1:37:02looked at him. He looked at her. There
1:37:04was a very long silence. He had his
1:37:07grandfather's hands, she said. Shepherd
1:37:11looked down at his hands. His
1:37:13grandfather, her father, Harlon Pembrey.
1:37:18He had died in 1998.
1:37:20He had never spoken to her again after
1:37:22she left. She was sorry for a lot of
1:37:26things, but his hands had come back.
1:37:29Shepherd had them. Shepherd's shoulders
1:37:31went. Just went. the way a man's
1:37:35shoulders go when the thing he has been
1:37:37holding for 34 years is set down. He
1:37:41crossed the parlor in three strides. He
1:37:43did not embrace her at first. He stood
1:37:46in front of her. He had not known she
1:37:48was alive. He said he had not known. He
1:37:51had thought. She knew what he had
1:37:54thought. Margold answered softly. It was
1:37:57okay. It was okay. Then she opened her
1:37:59arms slowly as if asking permission.
1:38:02Shepherd stepped into them. His face
1:38:04went into her shoulder. He was 6 in
1:38:07taller than she was. He had to bend down
1:38:09to fit. Tanzy and Jasper did not watch.
1:38:13They went out onto the porch. They sat
1:38:16on the steps. Jasper put his jacket
1:38:18around Tanzy's shoulders because the
1:38:20wind had come up out of the east and it
1:38:22was cold. They did not speak, did not.
1:38:25Inside the house, a mother and a son got
1:38:2730 years back. Not all of it. You cannot
1:38:30get all of it back, but some enough. The
1:38:34story ran on Wednesday morning. Marin
1:38:36Oaren had written 4,000 words. The
1:38:40Indianapolis star cleared the entire
1:38:42front page below the fold. The headline
1:38:45was simple. Senate candidates family
1:38:48took a child, paid a teenager, buried
1:38:50the record for 32 years. She kept the
1:38:53tape. By noon, the story was on the
1:38:55Associated Press wire. By two, it was on
1:38:58CNN, Fox News, MSNBC,
1:39:03Every Network in a Loop. By three, a
1:39:06satellite truck from a Chicago affiliate
1:39:08was parked at the end of Buckthorn Lane.
1:39:11And by 4, there were six of them. And by
1:39:13nightfall, there were 14 parked up and
1:39:16down County Road. 400 West generators,
1:39:20humming lights on poles, reporters and
1:39:22parkas doing standups with the dark
1:39:24shape of the farmhouse behind them.
1:39:27Tanzy did not speak to any of them.
1:39:29Shephard gave one statement. One, he had
1:39:33written it the night before in the motel
1:39:35in Loganport in blue ballpoint on the
1:39:37back of a menu.
1:39:39He read it from the top of the porch
1:39:41steps at 4:15 Wednesday afternoon with
1:39:44Maragold on his left and Tany on his
1:39:46right and Jasper and Ingred behind him.
1:39:48His name, he began, was Shepherd Haynes.
1:39:50He was a high school music teacher in
1:39:52Bloomington, Indiana. He had grown up in
1:39:55a loving home with two parents who had
1:39:57adopted him in good faith in 1994 and
1:40:00who had both passed away before he
1:40:02turned 30. His biological mother was
1:40:05Maragold Keen, formerly Laurie Pembbry
1:40:08of Oaklair, Wisconsin. She was a
1:40:10hairdresser. She was a decent person.
1:40:13She had been treated very badly a very
1:40:15long time ago by people who had the
1:40:18money to make her treatment look like
1:40:19paperwork. His biological father was
1:40:22Ellington Vance Granville III. He was
1:40:25not asking the man for money. He was not
1:40:28asking him for recognition. He was not
1:40:31asking him for an apology. He was asking
1:40:34him for one thing and only one thing. He
1:40:38was asking him to say in public with a
1:40:40camera on his face that his mother was a
1:40:43good woman who had not deserved what had
1:40:45been done to her. If the man said that
1:40:48they were finished, if he did not say
1:40:50that they were still finished, he had 24
1:40:53hours. He folded the menu. He stepped
1:40:56back from the porch railing. He did not
1:40:59take questions. Ellington Granville did
1:41:02not have 24 hours. He had 41. At 9:02 on
1:41:06Friday morning from the atrium of a
1:41:08Granville Trust Bank branch in downtown
1:41:10Indianapolis, Ellington Vance Granville
1:41:13III, looking older than his campaign
1:41:16photographs by about 10 years, stood at
1:41:18a podium and read a statement into a
1:41:21microphone. He said he was withdrawing
1:41:23from the United States Senate race
1:41:25effective immediately. He said he was
1:41:28deeply sorry.
1:41:30He said Lauri Pimbry had been a young
1:41:32woman of intelligence, resilience, and
1:41:34grace. That his family's treatment of
1:41:36her in 1989 through 1994
1:41:40had been wrong in ways that he Ellington
1:41:42personally had been too young at the
1:41:44time to understand, but was at 59 old
1:41:47enough to acknowledge. He said he had
1:41:50instructed the family trust to establish
1:41:52a $1.2 $2 million fund in her name to be
1:41:56administered by a board she herself
1:41:59would select for the benefit of women in
1:42:01Indiana fleeing coercive relationships
1:42:04with limited financial resources. He
1:42:06said he did not expect forgiveness. He
1:42:09said he was not asking for it. He said
1:42:11one more thing. Maragold. He was sorry
1:42:15for his part, for his brother's part.
1:42:18For his father's part, she had been
1:42:20right to leave. She had been right to
1:42:22run. She had been right to keep the
1:42:24tape. He stepped away from the podium.
1:42:27He did not take questions. Maragold
1:42:30watched the broadcast on the small
1:42:31secondhand television in Tanzy's parlor,
1:42:34sitting on the wool blanket that had
1:42:36been Shiloh's with shepherd on one side
1:42:37of her and Tanzy on the other. When the
1:42:40broadcast ended, she did not speak for a
1:42:43very long time. He had not named
1:42:45Apprentice, she said at last. He had
1:42:48not. Apprentice had been the one who
1:42:51came here. Yes, apprentice had been the
1:42:54one who swabbed her son's mouth. Yes,
1:42:57apprentice should go to prison. Shepherd
1:43:00looked at his mother. He would not. She
1:43:03knew he would not. The statute of
1:43:05limitations, the paternity fraud laws.
1:43:09She knew. She had asked the lawyer in
1:43:12Indianapolis before Shepherd had come.
1:43:15She knew. She looked at the television
1:43:18which was now showing a weather
1:43:19forecast.
1:43:21But Apprentice was going to live the
1:43:23next 30 years in a country where every
1:43:25single person he met would have seen
1:43:26that tape. And that was not prison. But
1:43:30it was not nothing. Tanzy reached out,
1:43:32put her hand on top of Maragold's hand.
1:43:35Maragold did not look at her, but she
1:43:38turned her hand over under Tanzies and
1:43:40their fingers locked. Three weeks
1:43:42passed. The satellite trucks left
1:43:44Buckthornne Lane. The drones stopped
1:43:47coming. The man in the white Chevrolet
1:43:50Silverado did not come back.
1:43:53The Granville Agricultural Holdings
1:43:55letter to Earl Pentecost was withdrawn
1:43:57in writing by a junior attorney whose
1:44:00signature was so shaky it looked like a
1:44:02child had held the pen. Earl's water
1:44:05kept flowing. His cattle were fine. He
1:44:08brought Tanzy a quarter of a steer in
1:44:10late November, butchered and wrapped. He
1:44:13would not take money. When she tried to
1:44:15insist, he told her he had had 500 head
1:44:18of cattle in February because of her.
1:44:20She would take the meat. They were not
1:44:23going to talk about this again. The
1:44:25Indiana Coalition Against Domestic
1:44:27Violence,
1:44:29a real organization that Tanzy had never
1:44:31heard of and that most of America had
1:44:33never heard of, reached out through
1:44:35Marin Oilaren and sent $14,000 to a bank
1:44:39account that Maragold helped Tany open
1:44:41in her own name in Renelier with a debit
1:44:44card that had Tanzy's own name on the
1:44:46front of it, which Tanzy held in her
1:44:48hand for 5 minutes in the branch lobby
1:44:50without being able to speak. She used
1:44:523,000 of the 14 to replace the
1:44:54corrugated roof on the farmhouse. Jasper
1:44:57did the work. He charged her for the
1:44:59materials and refused to be paid for the
1:45:01labor. She used 4,000 to put real
1:45:04insulation in the walls and to have an
1:45:07electrician run proper service from
1:45:08County Road 400 West to a new meter on
1:45:12the side of the house. She used 2,000 to
1:45:15have a well driller sync a dedicated
1:45:16well. She used the last 5,000 to open a
1:45:20small account at the same bank with the
1:45:21name the Buckthornne House Fund because
1:45:24she had decided somewhere between
1:45:26Shepherd's statement from the porch and
1:45:28Ellington's statement from the atrium
1:45:29what the house was going to be. It was
1:45:31going to be a 30-day stopover for women
1:45:34who had left, not a shelter.
1:45:37A shelter was a thing a social worker
1:45:39ran with a budget and a clipboard. This
1:45:42was going to be smaller. Three bedrooms
1:45:45upstairs. A kitchen where a person could
1:45:47cook what she wanted. A wood stove that
1:45:50worked. A library of books Petra Denning
1:45:53donated out of her own personal
1:45:55collection. A list of phone numbers. A
1:45:58box of pay as you go phones in the
1:46:00kitchen drawer. a legal clinic that
1:46:02Marin Oilarin connected Tanzy to, which
1:46:05sent a volunteer attorney up from
1:46:07Indianapolis one Saturday a month to
1:46:09answer questions about restraining
1:46:11orders and bank accounts and the
1:46:13particular legal weight of a wedding
1:46:14ring left on a bathroom counter.
1:46:16Maragold stayed 2 weeks after the
1:46:18Ellington statement. She helped Tanzy
1:46:20paint the upstairs bedrooms. She picked
1:46:22out the curtains. She chose the
1:46:24blankets, which were all brown and cream
1:46:26check, which Tanzy noticed and did not
1:46:27mention. She taught Tanzy how to can
1:46:30applesauce on the wood stove, which was
1:46:32a skill Tanzy had never thought she
1:46:33would need and which she now considered
1:46:35essential. On the morning of her last
1:46:38day, she made Tanzy sit at the plank
1:46:40table in the kitchen. She had something
1:46:42to say, she warned, and she needed Tanzy
1:46:44not to interrupt. Okay. Tanzy had not
1:46:48had to answer the knock. When she had
1:46:50come home and the blanket had been gone
1:46:52and the kettle had been there, she had
1:46:55not had to go upstairs. She had not had
1:46:57to open the tin. She had not had to
1:47:00drive to Indianapolis. She had not had
1:47:02to find her son. She had not had to find
1:47:05Margold. Every one of those things Tanzy
1:47:08had chosen. At every one of those forks,
1:47:11there had been a version of Tanzy who
1:47:13had said no. There had been a version of
1:47:15Tanzy who had sold the house to the man
1:47:17in the truck for whatever he had written
1:47:19on the check. That version existed in a
1:47:23different universe, and Maragold was
1:47:24sure she was fine. But in this one,
1:47:27Tanzy had kept walking forward every
1:47:30time. And Margold needed her to
1:47:33understand that that was who she was
1:47:35now. Tanzy did not speak. She could not.
1:47:39Maragold reached across the table, put
1:47:41both of her hands over both of Tanzies.
1:47:44The woman who would come through that
1:47:46door next week and the week after and
1:47:49the month after. They were going to
1:47:51arrive here afraid. They were going to
1:47:54arrive here thinking they were broken
1:47:57and they were going to look up from the
1:47:59porch steps and they were going to see
1:48:01Tanzy and they were going to think, "Oh,
1:48:06she did it. Maybe I can." That was what
1:48:10Tanzy was going to give them. And Tany
1:48:13was going to do it without ever once
1:48:15telling them her story because her story
1:48:18was not the medicine. Her presence was
1:48:21the medicine.
1:48:24Did Tanzy understand her? Tanzy nodded.
1:48:27She still could not speak.
1:48:30Maragold drove back to Wisconsin on the
1:48:32first Tuesday of December. She called
1:48:34every Sunday night after that. Shepherd
1:48:36came up every other weekend through
1:48:38January. He brought his guitar. He
1:48:41played in the parlor with the wood stove
1:48:43warm and the snow building on the window
1:48:45sills. songs that his mother had sung to
1:48:48him in his first four years of life and
1:48:50that he had not realized until he was 34
1:48:54had never left his body.
1:48:57Maragold would be on the phone on
1:48:59speaker singing along from a kitchen in
1:49:01Oaklair. Jasper would sit on the porch
1:49:03with his coffee listening through the
1:49:05window because he said he did not want
1:49:07to crowd a family. Shiloh was still
1:49:09there. Shiloh had been there the entire
1:49:12time.
1:49:13Shiloh had in fact been the one who
1:49:15answered the door the first time the
1:49:17Granville lawyer served papers and the
1:49:19one who told him through a 2-in crack
1:49:22that Miss Everheart was indisposed and
1:49:24could he kindly leave the envelope on
1:49:26the porch. A case worker had come out
1:49:28finally in late November from the Cass
1:49:31County Department of Child Services. a
1:49:33woman named Diana Horsley, who had been
1:49:36doing the job for 18 years and who had
1:49:38by Christmas approved a provisional
1:49:40kinship equivalent placement arrangement
1:49:42that let Shiloh stay with Tanzy on an
1:49:44emergency guardianship basis while the
1:49:47state slowly sorted out what Shiloh was
1:49:49in fact running from, which turned out
1:49:51to be a residential facility in
1:49:53Lafayette that would within 6 months be
1:49:56closed by the Indiana Department of
1:49:58Health for reasons that were themselves
1:50:00a different story and that would
1:50:02eventually also make the front page of
1:50:04the Indianapolis Star. Shiloh started
1:50:06school in January 10th grade. She rode
1:50:09the bus from the end of the ruts.
1:50:12On her first morning, Tanzy stood on the
1:50:15porch in a parka and watched the bus
1:50:16pull away. And for a reason she could
1:50:18not name, she thought of her mother. She
1:50:21had not thought of her mother in weeks.
1:50:23She thought of her now. She thought that
1:50:26her mother would have liked Shiloh, that
1:50:28her mother would have liked Maragold,
1:50:30that her mother would have liked the
1:50:31house with its new roof and its real
1:50:33insulation and its wood stove that no
1:50:35longer leaked smoke. She thought that
1:50:37her mother, who had told her in her last
1:50:40lucid week that the one thing she
1:50:41regretted was not getting Tany out of
1:50:44Columbus sooner, would have looked at
1:50:46this house and said, "This will do."
1:50:49Tanzy went inside. She called her aunt
1:50:51in Oregon. Varity picked up on the
1:50:54second ring. Tanzy, Aunt V. The cat had
1:50:59learned to open the refrigerator. Tanzy
1:51:02laughed. The laughter went on long
1:51:04enough that Varity on the other end
1:51:05laughed too, and the two of them laughed
1:51:07long distance for almost a minute about
1:51:09a cat named Perch who could open a
1:51:11refrigerator.
1:51:13When they stopped, Varity told her she
1:51:15sounded different. She felt different.
1:51:17Varity said she sounded like her mother.
1:51:20Did she? She sounded like her mother
1:51:22before she had gotten sick, which was a
1:51:24thing Varity had thought she would never
1:51:26hear again. Tany did not answer. She
1:51:29could not. She held the phone to her
1:51:32ear, and she looked out the kitchen
1:51:34window at the farmhouse across the yard,
1:51:36which was a farmhouse she could see.
1:51:38Because she was standing in a small
1:51:40guest cabin Jasper had helped her frame
1:51:42against the north wall as her own
1:51:44private quarters, so that the main house
1:51:46could belong to whoever needed it that
1:51:48week. In the main house right now, two
1:51:50women were sitting at the plank table.
1:51:52They had arrived yesterday. One was from
1:51:55Terry Hot. One was from a town in
1:51:58Kentucky Tanzy had never heard of. The
1:52:00one from Terry Ho was 48. The one from
1:52:03Kentucky was 22. They had both come
1:52:06alone. They had both come by Greyhound.
1:52:08They had both arrived with less than
1:52:10$200 in a bag the size of a grocery
1:52:13sack. Tany had made them scrambled eggs
1:52:15on the wood stove. When they arrived,
1:52:17she had shown them their rooms. She had
1:52:19put a laminated card on the counter in
1:52:21the kitchen, which Petra Denning had
1:52:23typed up for her, which read, "Ours to
1:52:25sit safely always. Bathroom keys, no
1:52:28locks." Private Wi-Fi password
1:52:32buckthornne 2024
1:52:34hot tea self-s serve back left. If you
1:52:37need to cry, yes. She had not asked
1:52:39either woman her story. She had told
1:52:42them in the exact words Maragold had
1:52:44taught her to use that they did not owe
1:52:46her their story. They owed her nothing.
1:52:49They were here. That was the only fact
1:52:52in this house today.
1:52:55The woman from Terry Ho had within an
1:52:58hour started crying. The woman from
1:53:01Kentucky had by evening started talking.
1:53:03They were there now as Tany spoke to her
1:53:06aunt on the phone folding laundry that
1:53:08Jasper's mother Ingred had washed and
1:53:10hung on the line in the backyard because
1:53:12Ingred came three days a week and did
1:53:14not charge anyone anything and would not
1:53:16let Tanzy thank her. Every load of
1:53:19laundry Ingred folded in that house she
1:53:21told anyone who tried was a load she
1:53:23owed Laurely from 33 years ago. Tanzy
1:53:27watched the two women fold sheets
1:53:29through the window. Aunt V. She wanted
1:53:32her to come out for Easter. Her aunt
1:53:34would like that. She wanted her to meet
1:53:36some people. Her aunt would like that
1:53:39very much. I love you. Her aunt knew her
1:53:43aunt loved her too. They hung up. Tanzy
1:53:47stood in the kitchen of her cabin for a
1:53:49while just standing, which was a thing
1:53:52she had not been able to do for 5 years
1:53:55because standing still had for 5 years
1:53:57meant waiting for Garrison's keys in the
1:53:59door. She went outside. She walked
1:54:02across the frozen yard to the main
1:54:04house. She went in through the back
1:54:06door, took off her boots on the mat,
1:54:08hung her jacket on a hook, and walked
1:54:11into the kitchen where the two women
1:54:13were folding sheets. The woman from
1:54:16Kentucky looked up. She was 22 years
1:54:19old. She had hair the color of wet
1:54:22straw. She had a bruise on her left
1:54:24cheekbone that was turning yellow at the
1:54:26edges. Thank you. Tanzy did not say
1:54:30you're welcome. She picked up the end of
1:54:32a sheet. She took it from the younger
1:54:34woman's hand. She told her they would
1:54:36fold this together.
1:54:39It was easier with two.
1:54:42Outside in the cornfield that was now
1:54:44her cornfield in the late winter light
1:54:47that was soft and gold and tired. The
1:54:50brick chimney of the farmhouse on
1:54:52Buckthornne Lane stood straight against
1:54:54a pale sky. The roof above it was new.
1:54:57The sighting below it was being replaced
1:54:59one plank at a time slowly by a
1:55:01traveling welder from Renelier, who did
1:55:03not keep a time card for anything he did
1:55:05at that house. The dead vines had been
1:55:08cut back from the east wall and would
1:55:10not come spring grow back the way they
1:55:12had. Inside the house, three women
1:55:15folded laundry. One of them was 26 years
1:55:18old, one was 22, one was 48. None of
1:55:22them had, in the strictest sense, come
1:55:24home. But all three of them, for the
1:55:26first time in a long time, were standing
1:55:28in a room where the door was not locked
1:55:31from the outside. And that was a
1:55:33different thing and a better

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