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that, Opal?”
    “Never mind,” Opal said. “You wouldn’t want to know. I hope you lock your doors.” She faced Moira, leaned in close with a shaking finger, like a mother warning her child.
    “At night,” Moira said, “we do. But not because of the Jamaicans. We trust these men absolutely.”
    “Then I’ll need a key to my room,” and Opal waltzed out onto the porch. A moment later Moira heard her voice sweet as maple syrup, introducing herself to someone. It was Adam Golding, she saw through the window, striding along with an apple crate, his ponytail lifting with each footstep. It was like a scene out of TV with the mute on: Adam standing there with the crate in his arms, a small surprised smile on his face; Opal tapping a shiny foot on the path, not caring that she was digging up mud, her head a little to one side, then nodding back and forth—was she giving a life history? Then Emily Willmarth swinging along with an aluminum pail, halting when she saw Adam with Opal; glancing at Adam, moving quickly past, head down as though she’d just lost a race. A race we all seem to be losing, Moira thought.
    Emily was passing by the front porch now, her pace slackened. For a moment she was Carol, after losing a battle at school—her favorite teacher chastised for teaching Deliverance.
    “Hey,” Moira called, and the girl swiveled her head. But it wasn’t Carol, of course. It was Emily Willmarth. If Moira were to run out and hug her, the girl would think her mad. So she waved, smiled encouragement, and went back in the house. The cat was curled up on her weaving chair, and she patted it, stood a moment, listening to it purr, letting her heartbeat go slack.
     

Chapter Eight
     
    Amelia, the new heifer named for Amelia Earhart, one of Ruth’s heroines, was in heat for the first time. She was humping the other cows, and they were humping her. A child would have thought they were playing leapfrog. It was early, though, for Amelia to breed, she wasn’t yet six months old. Now she was in a standing heat, remaining immobile while one by one the other cows mounted her. She was enjoying it, Ruth thought, looking through the barn window— Ruth, who hadn’t made love to a man since her husband Pete went off with that actress, leaving Ruth with three children, one of them a ten-year-old. Not that she hadn’t had her chances, of course; her old friend Colm Hanna would have gladly obliged. He made that eminently clear each time he came to the house.
    But the divorce had come through only two months before; it was a matter now of signing a paper, making a brief appearance in the local courthouse. Yet she felt like the bull calf she’d sent away to slaughter just before the signing—axed, cut into pieces: legs, thighs, liver, a side of beef. That was Ruth.
    She’d determined then that she wouldn’t get deeply involved again. To get involved, it seemed, was to get hurt, and so—for a time, anyway—she would close herself off, remain celibate. Watching Amelia, though, she wondered—was humping natural? Common sense told her it was, in the spontaneous animal world. Amelia was antsy, Amelia was in heat. In the old days she and the others would have run with a young bull. Who cared that he was a loser, a stuck-on-himself egotistical jerk? You were carried away by your body’s instincts.
    Today, though, there was no bull. What up-to-date farmer could afford to let any old bull impregnate her heifer? The offspring needed a better set to the leg, more curve, a greater milk flow. And so the artificial inseminator would come: He’d have you and a couple of your siblings in a chilly test tube. He’d pooh-pooh the idea that Pete’s granddad had about being sure to align your cow with her head to the north and tail to the south to ensure a heifer calf. He’d squeeze the syringe, shoot it in.
    Why was she thinking all this? Was she horny herself? A farmer in heat? She went to the barn sink and dashed her face with cold water.