After the dog tags came in the mail, LaVonna’s mother grew weepy, then dark. When asked she said her husband was a good man who died fighting the gooks. She turned the radio on for LaVonna and retreated to her bedroom to take refuge in his memory. LaVonna was four then.

Life became lean. They surrendered the dog to the family up the street, ate mayonnaise and pickle sandwiches Monday through Thursday, popcorn on Fridays, fried potatoes Saturdays and Sundays. Their electricity was shut off twice, their phone permanently. Her mother worked three jobs and slept endlessly when she was home. Some nights she didn’t come home at all.

Following one such night, looking rumpled but pleased, she woke LaVonna with slurred words. “You need to stop letting life get you down. Where’s that little girl with the pretty, pink cheeks and happy go lucky smile I used to know?” She tweaked her cheek before staggering away in a pair of high heels she hadn’t wore since LaVonna’s father was alive. The hem of her dress was inches above her knees.

She brought him home several weeks later, Mr. Franks. He was lanky and tan with a pocked face, wearing a vest and felt cowboy hat. He seemed a lot older than her.

“So, I guess you’re the little spit-fire your mama’s been telling me about. Put ‘er there, missy.”

She didn’t move until her mother nudged her, then she raised her hand limply.

He shook it, chuckled and looked at her mother. “Well, this should be interesting.”

After Mr. Franks left LaVonna’s mother told her he was divorced and had two kids of his own. He had a place near LeHigh. She didn’t know where LeHigh was, but LaVonna had better start being nicer to him or the two of them were going to have problems. She said she liked Mr. Franks and didn’t want anyone messing things up for her, least of all her own kid.

He started coming around more often. Mostly he ate supper with them, whatever her mother cooked. He stayed overnight when he did, leaving before LaVonna woke the next morning.

He brought his guitar over and played some songs for them, Hank Williams and Tennessee Ernie Ford. Showed LaVonna some chords. He bought her a paddleball for her birthday and told her not to play with it in the house or he’d warm her britches for her. Her mother nodded at everything he said.

One day her mother laid a dress on her bed and said, “Put that on and make yourself look pretty. You’re going to have a special visitor today.”

LaVonna struggled not to let her excitement show. “Who?”

“Never mind who. Just make sure you’re ready when he gets here.”

She put the dress on, brushed her hair and added a couple of barrettes to hold it in place. Her mother squirted several puffs of grownup perfume on her, told her to go into the living room, sit on the couch and wait.

Around noon she heard a honk, rushed to the door and opened it. Mr. Franks got out of his car wearing a suit, bolo tie and polished, cowboy boots.

When he stepped inside, he tipped his hat. Then he bent down and crooked his arm for her to take.

Her mother feigned being upset. “What’s going on here? Are you trying to steal my man away from me?”

He grinned at her. “Now knock that off. You’re embarrassin’ her. Ain’t that right, little missy?”

She stared at him blankly.

He took her to a hamburger joint called Moose’s, ordered her a cheeseburger, fries and milkshake, a beer for himself. While they waited for their order, he smoked a cigarette and watched her. “How would you like it if you and your mama came and lived with me?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

He reached over and tousled her hair she’d spent so much time making look pretty. “I’m a farrier. You know what that is?”

She shook her head.

“I shoe horses for a living. That means there’s always a lot of horses around my place. You like horses?”

She nodded.

He smiled at her in a gentle sort of way like he really cared about her. Like what she thought, how she felt, really mattered to him. And she did love animals. She felt so light she thought she might float off her seat into the ceiling fan overhead. Maybe everything really could go back to the way it had been before her father died. Maybe the three of them could laugh and love and be close the way they’d always been.

That evening after they’d sent her to bed she heard a squeal in the living room, hopped out of bed and ran in there to find them sitting on the couch side by side. Her mother was giggling, admiring the ring on her finger.

She wagged her hand at LaVonna. “Look, sweetie! We’re going to be married! You and me and Mr. Franks and his kids, we’re going to be a family!”

They moved to his place near LeHigh, and he put her to work cleaning out stalls in the barn, toting grain and water and coal, hoeing, pulling weeds, picking beans and digging potatoes. She gathered eggs from the chicken coop and cleaned them to be sold in town. She fell asleep at the supper table repeatedly, until he told her if it happened again she’d go to bed without supper.

His children, a boy and a girl, both older than her by at least ten years, visited whenever their mother let them. They rode the horses, fished in the creek, told funny stories that made their father laugh and slept ‘til noon. She watched them from a distance while they smirked and whispered.

One afternoon after their mother had picked them up and sped off in her Buick she walked back to the house. She felt proud. She’d worked hard, accomplished everything he’d asked her to do that day before supper. She could feel the warmth of his arms around her, his voice praising her for being such a good girl and never complaining.

When she opened the back door, she could hear the two of them talking in the kitchen.

Her mother’s voice sounded pinched. “But why? I don’t understand.”

“They ain’t comfortable with her livin’ here. ‘Said she gives them the willies.”

“She’s shy and never had a real family before. They have to give her a chance.”

“She’s had all the chances she’s gonna’ get. I can’t lose them to their mama, Beth. That bitch’ll rub my nose in it until the day I die.”

“So what are we going to do? Dump her on the side of the road like a dog?”

“I know some people been wantin’ a kid forever. They’ll take her in and be happy for it.”

“Fine. I’ll go too. We’ll both leave.”

“Now don’t start that.”

“I would. If I had money and a place to go I definitely would.”

“Trust me. The Mills is good people, known them all my life. They got a farm out by Buxton.”

“But what about her and me? Will we ever see each other again?”

“I don’t see why not. Buxton ain’t that far away.”

She turned and ran from the house, the screen door slamming behind her. She stumbled across the gravel drive, down the sloping yard to the forge behind the barn. There, beside an anvil and a pile of coal, she cried.

So that’s how it was. People could lie to you, make promises and change their minds whenever it suited them. No one had asked her about any of this or paused to consider her feelings at all. No one seemed to care as long as their lives were unaffected, as long as they could continue living the way they wanted. She was a problem in their eyes, something to be fixed, and there was nothing she could do about it.

Her mother found her minutes later. “I guess that’ll teach you to not to eavesdrop.”

She stared up at her, her face wet with tears, snot trickling out of her nose.

Her mother shook her head. “This isn’t anything to get upset over. You’ll be fine. From what I hear the Mills are good people.”