Homemade corn bread, chili, baked potatoes and toppings. Brownies and cookies for dessert. Blueberry muffins for breakfast tomorrow. She looks at the wealth of this food and knows it’s not enough. It can never be enough. Despite the banquet, she doesn’t have much of an appetite. All day she’s been trying to absorb herself in work. Cleaning the house that’s already clean, caring for the chickens that peck and scratch in the dirt and cluck around her feet and squat in front of her like she’s the rooster. She has nothing else to do in the house of her childhood, and too many memories fighting to overwhelm her. Ryan is leaving her. For a day, he says. Maybe two. But the fact is, he brought her back here, and now he’s going away, and she is afraid of losing everything she holds so close. Terrified of being abandoned. She hasn’t felt this way for years. No mess. Never. No garbage piled high, no dog poop on the floor.
