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Wilbur asked, feeling her shoulders. He gave her his shirt. It was huge and wet, clammy and musty at once, but at least it covered her. They walked blindly, feeling their way down the hill.
    They came to the lane and saw a lamp.
    “We’re over here, Mr. Gulch,” called Wilbur.
    Uncle Henry had a coat draped over his face, over the lamp, Dorothy saw his face solemn in its red light.
    “Thankee, Wilbur,” said Uncle Henry. He took Dorothy’s hand.
    “You be all right, Dorothy,” said Wilbur. He and Dorothy had a secret.

    Aunty Em was sitting at the table, reading by candlelight. She wore steel spectacles.
    “Time for bed, Dorothy,” she said.
    “Yes, Ma’am.”
    Aunty Em stood up, pulling back her chair. She pulled back the old blanket that hung across the room. She pointed to the straw.
    “This is where you sleep. We will be getting you a bed as soon as we can afford it, but for now you’ll have to sleep on straw. Not what you’re used to, but it is good clean Kansas straw.” She took a rag, soaked it in the bathwater, and used it to wipe the mud from Dorothy’s feet. “At least the rain got you clean,” she said. She gave Dorothy one of her own old, darned nightdresses. “This has already been cut down for you.”
    Aunty Em unfolded blankets over the straw. She stood up, wincing, hands pressed against the small of her back. “Good night, Dorothy,” she said.
    “Good night, Ma’am.”
    “That was quite an introduction we had.”
    “Yes, Ma’am.”
    Dorothy crawled onto the blanket, and felt the straw underneath it. She pretended to go to sleep. She listened. She wanted to hear what Aunty Em said. She heard pots banging on the stove. She smelled food burning. She heard the rain on the roof.
    “I’d say that was as thorough a job as she could manage of showing me up, with the Jewells,” Aunty Em said, a long time later.
    Uncle Henry sighed. “I don’t reckon Wilbur will say anything about it.”
    “She had a scarlet dress. Scarlet. For a child. God knows what sort of life she had in St. Louis with that man.”
    Dorothy heard creaking. Uncle Henry was crawling onto the bed.
    “Work,” he mumbled.
    And Dorothy heard Aunty Em pace. She heard boots clunking back and forth, back and forth on the hollow floor. She heard Aunty Em weep, brief, breathless sobs. She heard the garments slip off. She heard the lamp being blown out. Everything went dark. She waited until she heard Aunty Em snore. Aunty Em’s snores were loud, enraged. Then Dorothy took off the sour old nightdress and she padded on light child’s feet across the floor, and she stepped out into the rain again, and she slipped under the house. It was fairly dry under the house, except for where the water trickled in little streams like blood.
    “Toto,” she whispered. “Toto.”
    He crawled toward her whimpering. She hugged him and he licked her face. He shivered. They both shivered. Dorothy had to be loyal.
    I will wait, Dorothy promised Aunty Em. I will wait until you are sick and old, and I’ll put lye soap in your eyes, and I’ll take some shears, and I’ll cut all your hair off, and you won’t be able to do a thing, and I’ll say, It’s for your own good, Aunty Em, because you’re dirty. And I’ll just let you cry.
    Dorothy had learned how to hate.

Lancaster, California
    Christmas 1987
    1876—When the Southern Pacific Railroad Company laid its tracks through what was to be Lancaster in the summer of 1876, many of the early settlers stated the railroad named the train stop at that time. . . The Southern Pacific also built the first house in Lancaster, for their employees.
    1881—Nicholas Cochran passed through the Valley on the train and recognized its agricultural possibilities.
    1883—The first artesian well in the Valley was sunk near the Southern Pacific track for locomotive use. Soon after this, several men from Sacramento, connected with a bank there and other businessmen of that city, purchased land from the