The Memory Thief by Rachel Keener Page B

with gas stations, grocery stores, and a local diner. But it would quickly end and we’d drive back into empty land.
    Daddy coasted down hills in neutral to save gas, but our tank was nearly empty. Out of desperation he turned down a dirt road
     with a hand-painted sign staked at the corner:
Swarm Tobacco. Established 1893
.
    Tobacco as tall as Daddy and healthier than Momma waved like a welcome banner. It led us to Swarm house. A place more like
     a king’s throne than anything else.
    Daddy said he felt like saluting, the way he was taught the month he was in the army. Momma said she felt like praying, the
     way the preacher did over Grandma’s grave. Janie mumbled a cussword, because at ten that’s as big as it gets. And my hungry-baby
     eyes wondered if we were still on earth at all, or if Carolina had been the end. Maybe everything beyond was the heaven preached
     at Grandma’s grave. If so, I doubted they’d let us in.
    The Swarms walked out, one in overalls with a slick bald head, one in a gingham apron with gray hair tied back in a braid.
     Daddy told them about being raised in the fields. About running tractors since he was knee-high. Momma chatted with Mrs. Swarm
     about me and Janie.
    I hid behind Momma’s leg like I always did. Momma joked that I was more shy than a broke-down dog. And told how when we’d
     stop for gas, I’d tuck myself into the floor of the car so nobody could see me.
    “Must be good at hidin’,” Mrs. Swarm said. “That’s somethin’ to brag over when you’re a kid, ain’t it?” She peeked behind
     Momma and winked at me. “Might as well stay for supper. No place within miles to feed these babies.”
    “We got groceries in the car.”
    It was a lie. The money had run out so long ago I couldn’t remember the last time we’d eaten anything more than stale snack
     cakes from the gas station.
    “Your babies look pale. Give ’em a break from that car for a few minutes. Let me fix ’em a plate and run it out.”
    In all my years on Swarm farm, I never went inside that home. Long ago, Mr. Swarm had been robbed. Somebody stole his granddaddy’s
     shotgun and his grandmother’s engraved silver goblets.
    “Who’d ever want a goblet that says Swarm anyhow?” he’d ask, every time he told the story.
    Swarm house rules allowed only family and friends inside. We had many names on that farm. Bacca farmhands. Folks from Carolina.
     People living in Black Snake trailer. But we never confused any of them for the word
family
or
friends
.
    That first day on the farm, Mrs. Swarm made trips in and out of the house carrying bowls of stewed beef, plates of cat-head
     biscuits, and pitchers of milk and tea. We sat around a picnic table underneath a giant sycamore tree. The trunk as wide as
     Daddy with his arms stretched out. The leaves as big as my head. I looked all the way up, at the shaggy bark peeling off in
     chunks and wide strips, showing raw wood beneath. A trail of ants marched down the trunk. When Mrs. Swarm stepped inside to
     bring pie, I pointed them out to Daddy.
    “Ants is killin’ that tree.”
    Daddy looked and then shook his head. “Hurts to grow. Bark’s gotta yield to a risin’ trunk.”
    Mr. Swarm said the tree was famous.
    “Biggest one in the state, they say. I don’t set too much by it, though. Look out that way, beyond them fields. Think of all
     the trees nobody’s lookin’ at. One of ’em’s bound to be a big ol’ sycamore.”
    The land looked like my green baby blanket when Momma shook the dust from it. But in the distance, mountains circled. We weren’t
in
the mountains. But we would never be far from them.
    They watched us eat that day. Saw how I used baby fingers to pick up biscuit crumbs and tuck them in my mouth. Saw how Momma
     pushed the food around her plate, like she didn’t know what to do with it. Food never mattered much to Momma. She preferred
     a good smoke and a cheap drink. Her bony knees poked out from tanned-as-leather legs.