Jesse

She was 84.

Delbert found her when he came with the firewood and she didn't come to the porch.

Captain was lying on the bed next to her.

He wouldn't leave the body until my mother arrived.

We buried her in the cemetery at the church in the hollow, next to Pearl, next to her first husband, next to generations of people who'd lived and died on that land.

The service was small.

The preacher read from Psalms.

My mother cried.

I didn't.

I stood at the grave and looked at the ridges above the hollow, and I thought about what lived up there, and I wondered if it was watching.

The property went to my mother, who sold it within the year.

She didn't want it, and I couldn't afford it.

A couple from Virginia bought it as a vacation property.

They've been there twice that I know of.

I drove past it once, last fall, on my way to visit a friend in Pikeville.

The house looked the same.

The barn looked the same.

The chicken coop was empty.

The security light I'd installed was still mounted on the front of the house, but the bulb was burned out.

I didn't stop.