The Divorce He Asked For, The Empire I Took Away novel · Chapter 4 of 32

Chapter 4: No Hands

By Monday noon I had called every labor contractor between Cloverdale and Petaluma.

Eleven of them.

Every one said the same thing, some of them kindly.

"Booked through October, Liesl. I'm sorry."

The twelfth one didn't say sorry.

He said, "Mr. Arnott pays double to keep my guys home. You want them, pay triple."

I didn't have triple.

I had a farm, a dog and a checking account with nine thousand dollars in it.

On Tuesday Winona tried to walk the Old Block with me to check sugar.

She made it six rows.

Then her bad knee folded under her and she sat down hard in the dirt between two vines.

"Don't," she said, when I reached for her.

"Winona."

"I said don't. I'll get up when I'm good and ready." She glared at the vine like it had tripped her. "Your grandpa would laugh his ass off."

"He'd carry you."

"He'd try. He'd throw his back out and I'd carry him." She let me pull her up on the third try. "I can't pick, honey. I can sit and yell. That's about it this year."

"Then sit and yell."

"Oh, I plan to."

On Wednesday Goldie Dahl showed up at my gate at seven in the morning.

She was in rain boots and a sun hat four sizes too big.

The dog went to meet her.

"I need a job," she said through the chain.

"You're nine."

"I'm almost ten. In March." She held up a paper bag. "I brought my own lunch."

"Does your dad know you're here?"

"He's watching from the road."

I looked.

Augie was leaning on his mailbox across Dry Creek Road with a coffee cup, not even pretending.

He lifted the cup at me.

I unlocked the chain.

I took her down the rows of the Old Block where the clusters hung low and black against the old wood.

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