“You got a farm,” she said. “That’s rich in country.”
I looked back at St. Agnes as Mr. Reed’s car pulled away. It was an old brick building with narrow windows and a bell tower that no longer rang. I had hated it and loved it in equal measure. It had been a cage, but it had also been the only place that never threw me out.
The drive to Mason County took most of the day. Mr. Reed was polite, but not talkative. He answered my questions carefully, like every word mattered.
My grandmother had owned Whitaker Farm outright: eighty-six acres, a farmhouse, a barn, two machine sheds, a pond, and rented pastureland. She had lived there her entire adult life. My mother, Rachel, had grown up there. Then something happened when Rachel was nineteen.
“What happened?” I asked.
Mr. Reed looked at the road.
“Your grandmother believed Rachel was pressured to leave.”
“By who?”
“Family.”
That word sounded uglier than it should have.
“What family?”
“Eleanor had two younger children. Your uncle, Calvin, who died five years ago. And your aunt, Diane Whitaker Crowe.”
I watched brown winter fields roll past the window. “Does Diane know about me?”
“Yes.”
“Does she want me there?”
“No.”
At least he was honest.
We reached Mason County near sunset. The sky was bruised purple, and the land opened wide around us. There were no tall buildings, no city noise, no crowded streets. Just fields, gravel roads, bare trees, and farmhouses set far back from the road like they were keeping secrets.
When Mr. Reed turned onto a long lane bordered by cottonwoods, my heart began to pound.
The farmhouse appeared slowly, first the roof, then the porch, then the blue shutters from the photograph. It looked tired but proud. The white paint had peeled in places. The porch steps sagged. Vines climbed one side of the house. But lights glowed in the windows, and smoke curled from the chimney.
Someone was inside.
Mr. Reed noticed too.
“Stay in the car,” he said.
He parked near the porch and got out. Before he reached the steps, the front door opened.
A woman in a camel-colored coat stepped onto the porch. She was in her fifties, with stiff blond hair and a face that looked like it had been trained never to show surprise. Behind her stood a man in his twenties wearing a denim jacket and a baseball cap.
Diane Whitaker Crowe and her son, Mason. I knew before Mr. Reed said their names.
Diane looked past him, straight at me through the windshield.
She did not look shocked to see me. She looked angry that I had arrived.
I got out of the car even though Mr. Reed had told me not to.
The cold hit my face. The air smelled like hay, smoke, and frozen dirt.
Diane came down the steps slowly.
“So,” she said. “You’re Rachel’s girl.”
I had imagined many first words from a living relative. I had not imagined those.
“I’m Hannah,” I said.
Her eyes moved over me, measuring my thrift-store coat, my scuffed boots, my two duffel bags in the back seat.
“You look like her,” Diane said. It was not a compliment.
Mr. Reed stepped between us. “Diane, you were informed that Hannah would be arriving today.”
“I was informed of a mistake,” Diane said. “That will is going to be contested.”
“The will is valid.”
“That farm belongs to the family.”
Mr. Reed’s voice hardened. “Hannah is family.”
Diane laughed once. “She’s a stranger raised by the state.”
The words hit exactly where she intended.
Mason shifted behind her, looking uncomfortable. He was broad-shouldered and nervous, with his hands shoved deep in his pockets.
I stared at Diane. “Why are you in my grandmother’s house?”
Her mouth tightened.
