Chapter 10: Naming Cows

Maddie came out to the farmhouse for supper on Thursday, which was the plan, and then she saw the post, which was not.

I was at the stove with the noodles.

She was at my kitchen table, scrolling, and I noticed she'd stopped scrolling.

"Han," she said.

"What?"

"Someone from my graduating class wrote, 'She always was dramatic.'"

"Don't read the comments."

"Sixty-three people liked it."

Her voice was perfectly calm.

That was how I knew.

She stood up and put the phone face down, very gently.

Then she went out the back door onto the porch without her coat.

By the time I got there, she was bent over the railing with both hands gripping the wood.

"I can't," she said. "I can't, I can't get a, Han, I can't get air in."

"Look at me."

"I can't."

"Maddie. Look at me."

Her face was gray and wet.

Her breath came in tiny sips, one on top of another, and her hands were shaking so badly the railing hummed.

I did everything I do for a child in my classroom.

I got down to her eye level, I said her name, I talked her through her breathing, and none of it worked.

"In for four," I said. "Out for four."

"Stop counting."

"Okay."

"You sound like a teacher."

"I am a teacher."

She made a sound that wasn't a laugh.

The porch light at the end of the road snapped on, and then a truck door slammed.

Sam Frye came across County Road K in the dark, with his sleeves rolled and his boots unlaced.

He didn't hurry until he got to my gate.

"Heard the screen door," he said. "Heard the rest."

I opened my mouth to say we were fine.

"Can I?" he asked me.

It was a strange question from a man who'd never asked permission to plow my drive.