The day was slipping away, the sunlight thinning to sharp lines that glared over the thick tree line. It lengthened the shadows between the neatly plowed rows of red soil, which stretched as far as her eyes could discern. A hawk, which she’d glimpsed often around the area, drifted in slow circles over the field as the evening breeze approached.
Kristen inhaled, the faint scent of honeysuckle tickling her nose and the clean air filling her lungs.
“What do you think, Kristen?” Emmy asked.
“It’s big. Twenty acres, you said?”
“Eight hundred, seventy-one thousand, and two hundred square feet, to be precise.” Emmy smiled. “Or roughly twenty football fields minus the end zones. That’s how Joe liked to put it.”
Mitch stopped between rows, sat on his haunches, and scooped up a handful of red dirt. Clumps of damp clay fell off the sides of his palm as he squeezed it gently, looking into the distance.
“How ’bout it, Mitch?” Emmy asked.
He uncurled his fist and shook his hand, watching the red clumps fall back to the ground, then stood. “It’s still too wet. Needs at least two more days of sun before it’s ready, and that’s only if you manage by some miracle to get ahold of this land.” He walked back toward the truck, calling out over his shoulder, “It’s late, the kids are tired, and I imagine Kristen is, too. We need to head back to the house soon.”
Kristen watched him reach the truck and hop onto the tailgate with the kids; then she turned back to the field, tracing the path of the sun’s thin rays as they strolled across the red earth.
“What do you see?”
Kristen glanced at Emmy. Her blue eyes, measuring and weighing, stared back at her. “I’m sorry?”
“I said, what do you see?”
Shoving her hands into her pockets, Kristen rocked back on her heels. “Dirt. Lots of it.”
Emmy grunted. “You can do better than that.” She reached out, tugged Kristen’s hand from her pocket and, leaning heavily on her cane, pulled her to a squatting position. “Here.” She placed Kristen’s hand on the ground, then pressed her palm tight to the soil. “What do you feel?”
A frustrated laugh broke past Kristen’s lips. “Dirt. Why? Am I supposed to feel something different?”
Emmy gave her a sharp look, her mouth thinning into a tight line. “That’s not for me to say.”
Kristen sighed, looked down at the red ground beneath her hand and softened her tone. “Soil.” She curled her fingers around a loose pile of earth. “Moist and cool.”
“Lean into it,” Emmy said, then nodded as Kristen did so. “What’s below?”
Kristen stared, the red dirt blurring in front of her. The feel and smell of the earth against her skin was the same as it had been the day she’d sprinkled it onto Anna’s grave and said good-bye for the last time. Something broke deep within her. Widened into a gaping hole.
Don’t cry, Mama.
“Nothing.” Kristen blinked hard and tried to steady her voice. “It’s dark and empty.”
So dark and so empty, her chest ached to sink into it, and her limbs longed to curl in on themselves and absorb the black stillness. To grasp deep for something no longer within her reach.
“Hollow,” she whispered.
Emmy struggled to her feet.
Kristen cupped her elbow, helped her rise, and stayed by her side. They looked on
as dusk enveloped the land, smearing the sky with lavender, gold, and pink. With a cry, the circling hawk changed course and floated off toward the trees. The air cooled; the damp field darkened beneath the cloak of approaching night; then the rhythmic chirps of crickets and frogs emerged, pulsing all around them.
“A hollow,” Emmy said, “is just another place for something new to grow.”
* * *
New York, an exciting project and an abundance of opportunities to nurture and stretch creativity? Or backbreaking work, endless squabbles with Emmy, and a slow erosion into obscurity?
Mitch grabbed a sledgehammer, positioned a steel signpost anchor by the edge of the farm’s driveway, and hammered it hard. It cut through the grass and into the ground. He hit it several more times to secure it, then tossed the sledgehammer down and dragged his hands over his face.