Chapter 1
Abilene - 1946
By the time I turned fifteen, I was sure something alive was squirming inside me—something hungry, growing, and no part of me at all.
My belly kept swelling no matter how little I ate, and the fluttering deep inside made my skin crawl. I couldn’t explain it, couldn’t make sense of why I always felt so empty. Mama used to snap at me from across the table, her voice sharp as a switch. “Abilene,” she’d say, “you keep eatin’ like a hog at a trough. I swear child you got tapeworms—always eatin’, always wantin’ more.” Back then, I thought she was just being mean. Now… I wasn’t so sure she was wrong.
When I promised I hadn’t eaten any worms, my mama would just laugh at me. “Child, you don’t get tapeworms from eating ‘em. I done told you a hundred times to stop drinking the water out of that old trough in the field. You probably drunk up a belly full of ‘em.”
I kept thinking about all the times I dipped my hands into the field trough, splashed my sweat-slicked face, and drank whatever I could before the water slipped through my fingers. I never saw any worms floating in it—but maybe they were too small to notice. Maybe I swallowed them without knowing, and they just set up home inside me, growing bigger each day, feeding on the scraps I was lucky enough to get. Sometimes I’d stop mid-step and press my fingers deep into my belly, and watch it writhe around. I’d lie awake picturing them—long and slick, twisting around inside me, swelling every time I ate, stretching my belly bigger no matter how little food I had.
One evening, as I walked into town to pick up supplies, I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the store window, and for a moment, I froze. It won’t me staring back. It was Mama. Big belly and all. I looked just like she did before my baby sister killed her. That’s when I knew: I must be carrying a baby. And just like Mama, I would die trying to bring it into this world. The thought clamped down hard, and I couldn’t stop my mind from going back to that night. The night Mama bled and screamed and never got back up. I was only eight, but I remember it clear as if it happened yesterday. . .
***
Mama stared at me from across the room with a look I’d never seen before, like she couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry. Then she shot up from her chair and started pacing in frantic circles.
“My Lord, Abilene,” she said, clutching her belly, “I think this baby is on its way. I’ve done lost my water and the pains are comin’ fast.”
I didn’t know what she meant by losing her water, but the way she moved, the way her voice sounded all cracked and broken, scared me. I ran to my corner, the one I always crawled into when the world felt too big, and hugged my legs to my chest, pressing my face so hard into my knees I thought my eyes might pop. I kept praying that when I looked up Mama would be standing tall again, calm, her old self. But when the darkness behind my eyes faded, she was bent over in the middle of the kitchen, groaning like something wild, like pain was tearing through her from the inside. The sounds that came from her didn’t sound human.
If anyone had walked by our house, they surely would have thought we were torturing and killing some animal right there in our kitchen. They reminded me of the little puppy I once brought home, the one Daddy beat to death out back for being one mouth too many. The yelping, the shrieking. It haunted me in my sleep. I couldn’t even use the outhouse for weeks after, not with his tiny body lying in the pit below.
I didn’t want to think about that puppy. I didn’t want to hear those sounds again. But Mama kept crying out, and it felt like the nightmare was starting all over, only this time, it was her. And all I could do was cover my ears and wish the screaming would stop.
“Lord, it’s comin’ tonight. Oh, Lord, this baby is on its way,” Mama gasped through clenched teeth, still staring at the floor like it might open up and swallow her whole.
Daddy pushed back his chair and stood up slow, frowning at her like she’d gone and ruined his evening. For a moment, I wondered if he was already picturing taking that baby out back, the same way he did with the puppy. His face didn’t soften one bit. He just shook his head and moved toward the door.
As he left, he called out, “Abilene, girl, you help your mama birth that baby now, you hear?” Then, quieter, but loud enough for me to catch it: “Like I need one more damned mouth to feed.”
“Help her what?” I shouted, but the door had already slammed behind him. I stood there, frozen, no clue what he meant or what I was supposed to do.
Mama was circling the room like something trapped, sweat pouring off her face like she’d been out in the fields since sun-up. She let out these low, guttural noises that didn’t sound like words anymore, just pain made into noise. I couldn’t stand to see her like that, didn’t know how to help, didn’t know what was coming. I just knew I wanted it all to stop. But I had no idea that the worst of it hadn’t even begun.
Mama collapsed onto my little pallet in the corner, her breath ragged, her face twisted with pain. She yanked up her old farm dress and threw her legs open, her voice sharp as a whip.
“Abilene, get over here, child, and tell me what you see! Hurry!”
I stood frozen, not sure what I was supposed to be looking for. But Mama didn’t wait.
“Abilene!” she screamed. “Is there a head? Can you see a head? Tell me what you see, girl, tell me now!”
Her voice was a sound I’d never heard before, part growl, part cry, and it cut straight through me. I swallowed hard and forced my feet to move. My knees wobbled as I stepped toward her.
I crouched down, my hands shaking, and peered between her legs. My heart was thudding in my ears so loud I could hardly think. My eyes burned with the effort to focus. And then I saw it.
Not a head.
A foot.
Just one tiny, twisted foot.
I opened my mouth, but my voice got stuck somewhere deep inside me. I barely managed to whisper. “Oh, my Lord…”
Mama didn’t answer, but the heat pouring off her body onto my hand was so fierce I jerked back, afraid it might burn me. She was on fire without flames, and I didn’t know what to do. All I could think was she’d burst open right there on my little bed, and I’d be left standing in the smoke.
I ran to the door and flung it open, searching the yard, the lane, the field, anywhere, for someone, anyone, who could help. But there was no one. I turned back toward the cabin, my voice breaking.
“What do I do, Mama? What do I do?”
She started screaming, over and over, raw and ragged, “Get it out, Abilene! Get it out!”
I didn’t know how. But her legs were still spread, and that little foot was still there, stuck and still, and I thought maybe if I just did something, anything… I reached out, grabbed hold of it, and pulled.
Mama’s screams rose so high it didn’t sound like her anymore. I stopped. Nothing changed. The baby didn’t move, and Mama just kept howling. My hands shook as I let go of the leg and stumbled back, then bolted for the door.
“I’ll find help, Mama, I promise,” I cried, and I tore down the lane, feet slapping the dirt, heart beating like a drum in my chest.
Up ahead, I saw a small group outside one of the tenant houses, talking, laughing like it was just another evening.
“Help me! Help me, please!” I screamed. “My mama’s dying!”
A woman I knew, Lilly, who worked the tobacco rows with us, rushed toward me, her eyes wide.
“Good Lord, child,” she said. “Why you screamin’ like that?”
“My mama is on fire and the baby is only a foot. I don’t know what to do and I can’t pull no more,” I screamed.
Lilly grabbed my hand and ran with me towards our tenant house. “Quick, child, we gotta get to your mama now.”
When we got back to the cabin, Mama had stopped yelling and looked like she was sleeping. Lilly rushed over and placed a hand on her forehead.
“Good Lord, she’s burnin’ up! How long ago did she start laborin’, child?”
“I don’t know,” I said, my voice trembling. “She started walking in circles and groanin’ hours ago. Then my daddy just left and told me to help her. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to help!”
Lilly stared at the tiny foot, now still and hanging. From the look on her face, I knew it was bad. The baby’s foot was blue and still. Bluer than anything I’d ever seen.
I ran to Mama’s side and shook her leg. “Mama, wake up! Please wake up. Mama!” My voice cracked. “Lilly, why isn’t she waking up? What’s wrong with her? Why is the baby’s foot blue?” I cried, shaking my mama’s leg, trying to make her wake her up.
Lilly pressed her ear to Mama’s chest and listened. Then she pulled the gown back down, reached for the sheet at the foot of the bed, and gently stretched it over Mama’s body, up over her face.
She didn’t look at me right away. She just stood there, staring at the sheet, her eyes heavy and dark. Finally, she looked up at me, and I knew the truth before she spoke.
“Is she dead?” I asked, barely able to get the words out.
Lilly nodded slowly, stepping toward me and placing her hands on my shoulders.
“I’m so sorry, Abilene. That baby was breech. Weren’t no way to get it out without cuttin’ her open.”
I knew what she was telling me, but somehow my mind couldn’t believe what was happening. My mama was gone. My mama was dead. I crumpled to the floor where I stood and wept.
* * *
As my thoughts returned to the present, my eyes locked on the hollow reflection staring back at me in the store window, I knew, without doubt or question, that my life was already over. Just like Mama, I was meant to die young. Her pain had ended on that pallet bed, and mine would end soon enough. There was no escaping Daddy, no future waiting for me beyond his shadow. Death was the only door left open, and I could feel it calling.
Chapter 2
Montie - 1961
The Whittington Farm sat just beyond the edge of Gilbert’s Corner, past the rusted feed store and the Methodist church. The town never changed much, stuck somewhere between a Hallmark postcard and a whispered prayer someone forgot to finish. When we were kids, it felt like the safest place on Earth. Familiar faces, front porch hellos, the kind of town where you waved even if you didn’t know the person. But safety’s a funny thing. Sometimes it’s just silence wearing a friendly smile.
“Don’t say that so loud,” Tucker used to whisper when I’d mutter questions about things that didn’t add up. “These people can hear through walls.”
He wasn’t wrong. Secrets in Gilbert’s Corner traveled like lightning bugs in a jar, glowing just enough to let you know something was there, never enough to see clearly. Folks passed gossip like casseroles, especially on Sunday nights after church, when the heat clung to your neck and sweet tea sweat through the glass. A little scandal went down smoother with a slice of pound cake.
Lucky for us, or maybe not, Grandma Hettie knew how to keep a secret better than most. But the same mouth that guarded the past could silence a room with just one raised eyebrow. She didn’t lie. She just made the truth so quiet, it never had a chance to speak.
Everyone called me Montie, short for Montgomery Bell Whittington-Alexander. I was named after my grandmother, Hettie Bell Whittington. I was fifteen and my brother, Tucker, was two years younger. He was named after our grandfather of the same name, William Tucker Whittington.
Our farm stretched across 1,100 acres, rolling in every direction like it had no intention of stopping. Corn and cotton, soybeans and tobacco, the kind of land that demanded respect and a strong back. Right in the heart of it stood the main house, white paint peeling in places, black shutters like blinked-out eyes watching the fields. A brass horseshoe hung crooked on the front door, scuffed dull by decades of knuckles.
“Still think that thing brings luck?” I asked once, tapping it with two fingers.
Grandma Hettie had looked up from her pruning, not missing a beat. “Depends on which way the wind’s blowin’ and what you’re tryin’ to hide.”
The porch wrapped around the front like a hug, lined with creaking rockers and sun-faded cushions, each one holding the shape of someone who used to sit there. It was the kind of porch where conversations started slow and never quite finished, where folks came to rest their bones but left heavier than they came.
Behind the big house, tucked just shy of the cornfield, was the smaller home where Grandma moved after Grandpa Tuck passed. “Passed” was the word they used, like he slipped out the back door and forgot to come home.
Her little house was square, plain, and shaded by oaks so wide their roots buckled the ground beneath them. Spanish moss hung like curtains from the branches, swaying even when the air was still.
“Mice’ are back,” Tucker whispered one July afternoon, crouched beside the porch steps with a jar of peanut butter and a snap trap.
“Think we’ll beat last summer’s record?” I asked.
He grinned. “Only if they bring cousins.”
Inside, the house smelled like lemon polish and warm cornbread. Outside, the swing groaned gently, rusted chains swaying as we settled into our usual spots, Tucker on the edge, me curled up beside Grandma.
“You kids know why we plant marigolds at the edge of the rows?” she asked once, her voice low and gravelly.
“Pests,” I said, proud of myself. “They keep the bugs away.”
She nodded, but her smile was distant. “That’s what folks say. Truth is, they hide things too. Sometimes, you don’t want every eye seein’ what’s been buried.”
We didn’t ask what she meant.
She talked often like that, half truth, half shadow, like she was handing us puzzle pieces from a box we weren’t allowed to open. We’d listen in the dark, the swing swaying beneath us, fireflies blinking just beyond the porch light, and the creak of the boards beneath her feet sounding less like wood, more like a warning.
The cemetery at Gilbert’s Corner sat just across from Silent Oaks Methodist Church, the two of them like old neighbors watching each other across the road. I couldn’t pass it without thinking about the summer we helped rebuild the church; memories, half real, half dream.
“I still remember the way the bell used to sound,” I said to Tucker as we crossed the street. “Like it was calling everyone home.”
He gave a dry laugh. “Or warning them to stay away.”
It’s one of those memories that feels both vivid and dreamlike now. The church was a small white building with black shutters, a tall steeple, and a bell that rang out every Sunday morning. If everyone squeezed in tight, it barely held a hundred people. It sat on a bed of bright green grass, surrounded by hydrangea bushes so heavy with white blooms they seemed ready to topple. In spring, hundreds of tulips, every color you could imagine, sprang up around them, packed so tight you couldn’t even see the dirt for the tangle of stems. I remember our dad up on the roof with the other men, hammering away, while the moms gardened and spread food out on folding tables for dinner. We kids tore across the lawn playing hide and seek, tag, duck-duck-goose, anything that let us run wild. I loved those weekends with our neighbors, building something that mattered. During the season on the farm, there wasn’t time for parties or playdates, so those days felt like magic. No one expected anything of me, unlike at school. No teasing, no whispering. Just games and laughter. For once, I wasn’t the odd one out. I was just another kid in the crowd, and for a while, I belonged.
Tucker and I slipped through the rusted gate into the cemetery, our feet crunching gravel as the iron creaked behind us. The oaks loomed tall, draped in Spanish moss that twisted in the breeze like spider webs. It was the kind of place that made you whisper without knowing why. The large wrought iron fence surrounding the graves, seemed to warn visitors to turn back, while its open gates beckoned anyone passing by to come in and stroll through it rows and rows of occupants. Life size sculptures, obelisks and archways competed for the attention of anyone who might be passing by.
Tucker slowed beside me, scanning the headstones. “Why does it feel like everyone in this place is watching?”
“Maybe they are.”
