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loves you fine,” she said.
    â€œThen why do you keep me a secret?”
    â€œI don’t keep you a secret, Rodney. That doesn’t even make sense.” But she was lying. She saw exactly what he was trying to say, and it broke her heart.
    â€œI think maybe I got a demon in me.”
    She reached for him and pulled him close. “Now, who told you such a thing?”
    He shrugged. “I figured it out. Folks say when the storms come it’s because of sin. I can’t think of no sin to explain what happens to me, so maybe I’m just a demon.”
    She squeezed him tighter. “Ssh, I don’t want you to talk like this, Rodney. It’s foolishness. You are a little boy, not a demon.”
    He nodded and buried his head in the crook of her neck.
    â€œWhat if Momma told you we were going to leave this place, baby? What if I said you and me and Mary were going to go someplace nicer, someplace where there wasn’t no storms?”
    He shook his head violently.
    â€œNo.”
    â€œWhy not, Rodney?”
    â€œI don’t want to die. Otto says the Lord will take vengeance upon those that abandon this place.”
    Trudy was stunned. She had no idea Rodney had been absorbing all of this. It shouldn’t have surprised her, because his perception was uncanny sometimes, but it had never crossed her mind to consider how all the talk about God’s wrath might be affecting her son.
    â€œPromise me we’ll never leave, Momma.”
    â€œRodney, I can’t promise that. We . . .”
    He squirmed out of her arms, and she was surprised by his strength. He sat back and glared at her. “Promise me or I’ll scream.”
    Trudy was aghast. He hadn’t done this in years. When he was much younger, he used to make her do things with these sorts of threats. She had hated giving in to them, but he could scream in such a terrible, soul-killing way that she often did anyway.
    â€œYou will not,” she said, trying to be in control.
    But she was wrong because he did, and it was awful, so awful she grabbed him and shook him hard, probably too hard, but he wouldn’t stop.
    â€œOkay,” she said. “I promise. I promise we won’t leave.”
    He stopped immediately and fell into her arms.

17
    But she had lied to him. If anything, her desire to leave grew stronger. She spent her days imaging how it would go, waking up in the middle of the night, going to the children’s room and shaking them awake. She’d lie to them and say that they were going outside to see the stars or the moon. Once outside, she’d get them moving with some promise or another. They’d make the road within an hour or two, and by then, Rodney might have realized what was happening, but they’d be too far gone for anyone to hear his screams.
    Sometimes she fantasized about going over to Ben’s place and asking him to come with them. She knew it was foolish because she didn’t really love him. She
couldn’t
love him, she knew, as long as he bought into what was happening here, but if he rejected it too, if he agreed to come with her, she thought that might change things. Still, he had his own family to think about. She shook her head, dismissing such ideas.
    She decided they would leave in one week. That would give her some time to pack a bag, to plan, and though she didn’t want to admit it to herself, a week would also give her plenty of time to talk herself out of it.

18
    It was hard to say exactly what changed over the next week. There were no storms. In fact, the days were sunny and the nights warm, yet people stopped speaking to her, and when they saw Trudy coming near, they often exchanged looks and an awkward silence would ensue. She tried not to let it bother her. She tried to remind herself that she was leaving soon.
    Except she had some doubts about that too.
    Somehow the fact that nobody mentioned Simpson at all made his sudden departure