She would normally break down on Tuesday night, after the final feedings of the day. Afterwards we’d drink strawberry wine, but not after a few hours of distant stares and dried tears. Right after sundown, when the cows cast shadows over the craggy ground. It was a hot summer that July in 1943, right before I left to catch my fate in the swinging tornado of fate that lay just outside the boundaries of the farm.

It was on such an evening that I made my decision, packed my lone item of luggage and waited for the bank truck to pick up the last deposit for the day. We sold ice cream on the side, and on this particular July we cleared 25 dollars, in crumpled dollar bills, ripped from the dirt encrusted pockets of the workers fortunate enough to be paid. We treated them well, allowing them to stop for a spell in the middle of the blazing afternoon to take respite under the great oak at the center of the front lawn.

I spoke with Handy a few hours prior. I made sure the last of her tears were dry before I heaved the trunk at the back of Handy’s truck bed. The guilt was overwhelming and my hands shook as I handed him the last of the bills.

I stood up on the bed and looked out across the fields cooled by the oncoming night, waved imaginatively at the silhouette at Henrietta’s window and could make out the languid shadow her torso made against the stained shade. The sharp gurgle of the engine started and I maintained utmost secrecy as I leapt off of the bed and slid into the cab of the bank truck, took one last glace up at the rise and fall of Henrietta’s torso at the window and felt the shove as we drove out past the milkery down through the hills bordering the farm tossing my cap as the last fleck of dust coated the rickety gate at the entrance to the farm.