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before she died. It was
in those boxes Justice had found the music of her heart: Rush.
Nugent. U2.
    And the music of her memories of her mother: Earth
Wind & Fire, Carole King, Doobie Brothers.
    She pressed play and heard Bette Midler’s voice.
     
    *
     
    “ Some say love . . . ”
    Justice hid in the endless shadows of the barn
listening to her mother sing a cappella while she milked cow number
two. Justice would have helped her, but she would stop singing if
she knew anyone listened and oh, Justice did so love to hear her
mother sing.
    She had never heard this song before, which she
deduced from the lyrics must be called “The Rose.” She bit her lip
at the words, suddenly feeling a sadness emanating from her mother
in a thick wave. Where had it come from? Her mother was never sad;
always light, always smiling, Justice’s mother was the prettiest
woman Justice had ever seen.
    Suddenly she stopped singing and murmured, “Where is
that girl? It’s gone five.”
    “ Here, Mama,” Justice said, stepping into the
barn proper, as though she had just come from the house. “I’m sorry
I’m late.”
    A smile, quick and warm, lit her face. “Good
morning, Iustitia. Will you turn on the radio, please?”
    She didn’t want the radio. She wanted whatever was
in the tape player, which happened to be Hall & Oates.
    “ Thank you, baby. Cows three and four need to be
milked yet.”
    Libby McKinley didn’t see any reason to name any
animal that provided food, money, or clothes. The dogs had names
because Justice’s father had insisted, but the barn cats didn’t.
The only animal Justice had been allowed to name was her own cat,
Pontificate. She hadn’t known what that word meant at the time, but
thought it a neat word when she’d heard her mother say it to her
father.
    He hadn’t known what it meant, either, so he’d
stormed out of the house.
    A week after Justice had heard her mother singing
sad songs in the barn, she had almost tumbled over into sleep when
she felt the familiar depression of the bed. Her mother snuggled up
to her and it only vaguely occurred to Justice that she had been
sleeping with her a lot more lately.
    “ Iustitia,” whispered her mother in the dark of
her room, her body warm and soft against her, “you have no idea how
badly I want you off this farm.”
    Justice didn’t understand that. She loved the farm,
the work, the chores, even the animals, though her mother didn’t
know she thought of some of them as pets. “Why, Mama?”
    “ Because this is not the place for you. You have
a keen mind and I want you to use it for something besides
mindless, endless chores. You’ll be old before your time.”
    “ I don’t understand.”
    “ Of course you don’t and you won’t until you’re
stuck where I am. I want you to remember this, Iustitia. I want you
to remember that I wanted you educated, off this farm, doing
something grand and making a mark in the world. That I wanted you
to have a philosophy and stick with it, believe in it, even if it’s
not mine.”
    That struck Justice as a funny phrasing. “What do
you mean, ‘wanted’?”
    “ Do you know how old I am?”
    Of course she did. Everyone knows that about their
parents. “Twenty-three.”
    “ Yes. Do you know how old your father
is?”
    “ Forty-one.”
    “ Do the math, Iustitia. How old was I when you
were born?”
    Justice gulped. She would be fourteen in five years.
Did that mean . . . ?
    “ That’s right. I don’t want that for you. I want
you to understand that having children when you’re young is a
trap—not that I regret having you because I love you dearly and I
wouldn’t trade you for a seat in the Senate—but I want you to make
a name for yourself, something grand and wonderful. The earlier the
better. Promise me this.”
    Justice didn’t understand her sense of urgency, her
insistence. Thinking back, everything her mother ever did or said
had paved the path to this moment.
    Something bad was going on.
    “