“Oh,” Gen said, “cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, allspice, vanilla—but real pumpkin’s the key.” Gen, satisfied with the satisfaction at her table, smiled at her husband, who gravely put down his fork.

“When you come,” Effie said, “Momma said you mentioned our little girl.”

The old man looked across the table at his wife, checking her eyes, or the turn of her mouth, for subtle signs, searching for agreement. It was as if he found what he needed in the space between them, and spoke aloud only to verify that it was there, that someone else had seen it.

“Our little girl,” Gen said.

“Your daughter,” Kirsten said.

“I wondered if you were an old friend. Maybe from school. Most of them have grown and gone away. I used to see—it would have been so long ago but. . . .” He trailed off, his pale-blue eyes wetly sparking in the weak, splintered light of the chandelier.

Lance said, “Kirsten’s been to the other side. She’s seen it.”

“I would believe you,” Effie said. “Some around here don’t credit dowsers, but we always have. We never had reason not to. We always had plenty of water.” He cleared his throat. “I’d pay anything if you could tell us—anything.”

“There’s the babies,” Lance said.

“I’ll help with those babies of yours. I’ll donate to your cause. Where you going after this?”

“We’re aiming west,” Lance said.

Effie squared his fork with the edge of the table. “Well?”

Kirsten was about to speak when she felt a hand slide over her knee, the fingers feeling their way until they rested warmly in her hand, holding it tight. She glanced at the old woman.

“It was only that picture on your wall,” she said to Effie.

The picture was the one every child drew a hundred times—the house, the leafy tree, the sun in one corner, the birds overhead, the walkway widening like a river as it flows out from the front door, the family standing on the green grass, a brother, a sister, a mother with her triangle dress, the father twice as big as everybody, the stick fingers overlapping—and that no one ever saved.

“It was just that picture,” Kirsten said. “I wish I could say it was more, but it wasn’t.”

Effie picked up his fork and pressed it against the crumbs of piecrust still on his plate, gathering them. He looked as though he had another question in mind.

“That was the last picture,” the old woman said.

“She just drawn it at school,” he said. “She put me and Gen in, her and her brother.”

“Stephanie,” Kirsten said, “and Johnny.”

The old man glanced at his wife.

“She spelled all the names on the picture,” Kirsten said.

Gen whispered yes, but it was Effie who had to speak up. “I never breathed right or walked right after,” he said. “Never farmed, neither, except for my little garden out back.”

“That was the best pie I ever had,” Kirsten said.

“Show your ribbons, Momma,” Effie said.

“Oh, no,” Gen said, waving her hand, shooing away the approach, the temptation of something immodest.

“Well, that’s right,” Effie said. “The pie’s right here, huh?” He looked around the table. “The pie’s right here.”

Kirsten hovered above the field and could hear the rumble of an engine and the crushed stalks snapping, a crackling noise that spread and came from everywhere at once, like fire. The stalks flailed and broke and dust and chaff flew up, and then, ahead, she saw the little girl running down the rows, lost in the maze, unable to search out a safe direction. Suddenly, the girl sat on the ground, her stillness an instinct, looking up through the leaves, waiting for the noise to pass. Kirsten saw her there—a little girl being good, quiet, obedient—but when the sound came closer she flattened herself against the dirt, as if the moment might pass her by. When it was too late, she kicked her feet, trying to escape, and was swallowed up. The noise faded, and a scroll of dirt and stover curved over the fields like handwriting. Then it was gone, and Kirsten saw her own reflection floating in the gray haze of the vanity.

“Lance,” she said.

“What?”

“We’re leaving,” she said.

“Why, what?”

Kirsten gathered the old woman’s clothes in a garbage sack and had Lance carry them to the car. She made the bed and fluffed the thin pillows. The house was quiet.

She sat at the small painted vanity, taking a blue crayon from the cup, and wrote a thank-you note. She wrote to the old woman that one second of love is all the love in the world, that one moment is all of them; she wrote that she’d really liked the pumpkin pie, and meant it when she’d said it was the best she’d ever had, adding that she never expected to taste better; she thanked her for the hospitality and for fixing the car; and then she copied down the words to the song the woman she called Mother had sung:

**{: .break one} ** Where are you going, my little one, little one? Where are you going, my baby, my own? Turn around and you’re two, turn around and you’re four. Turn around and you’re a young girl going out of the door. **

Lance was gone for a long time, and Kirsten, looking over the note, considered tearing it up each time she read it. As she sat and waited, she felt a sudden warmth and reached under the elastic of her underpants. When Lance finally returned, he was covered in dry leaves and strings of tassel, as if he’d been out working in the fields. They went outside and pushed the car down the gravel drive, out to the road. It started up, beautifully quiet.

“Wait here,” Kirsten said.

She walked back to the yard. It was cool, and the damp night air released a rich smell of dung and soil and straw, a smell Kirsten was sure belonged only to Iowa, and only at certain hours. She pulled her T-shirt over her head. She was reaching for the clothespin that held the old woman’s bra when something made her look up. The old woman was standing at the upstairs window, her hand pressed flat against the glass. Kirsten took the bra from the line and slipped the straps over her shoulders. She fastened the clasp and leaned forward, settling her breasts in the small white cups. The women looked at each other for what seemed like an eternity, and then Kirsten pulled on her shirt and ran back to Lance.

Under the moonlight, they drove down mazy roads cut through the fields.

“God damn, the Lord sure hath provideth the corn around here,” Lance said. He imitated the old man compulsively. “I’ll be plenty glad to get out of this Ioway. Ioway! Christ Almighty. I’m sorry, but those people were corny. And that old guy, jawing on about Castro’s fucking pigs in the bathtub. What’d he say, they cooked a hog in that hotel room? What the hell.” Lance was taking charge, his mind hard, forging connections. He was feeling good, he was feeling certain. “And God damn I hate ham! Smells like piss!” He rolled down the window and yelled, “Goodbye, fucking Ioway!” He brushed corn silk from his sleeve and shook bits of leaves from his hair.

“Here’s something for you.” He reached in his pocket and handed her a long heavy chain.

“Looks to me like gold with emeralds and rubies mixed in,” he said.

“That’s costume jewelry, Lance.”

“We’ll get it appraised, and you’ll see. It’s real,” he said, bullying the truth, hating its disadvantages. “They won’t miss it, Kirsten. They’re old, honey. They’re gonna die and they got no heirs so don’t you worry.” He grinned widely and said, “I got something out of the deal, too.” He waited. Kirsten just stared at the cheap gaudy chain, pouring it like water from one hand to the other.

Lance said, “Look in back.”

When she turned around, all she saw through the rear window was a trail of dust turning red in the tail-lights.

“Under the blanket,” Lance said.

Kirsten reached behind her and pulled away the blanket. The rear seat was overflowing with ears of corn. Lance had turned the whole back of the car into a crib.

“Ioway corn,” he said. “Makes me hungry just thinking about it.” ♦