"The Government didn’t ask us if we wanted houses there."
We wouldn’t have sold the woods if we hadn’t had to, she said, ladling out thick tomatoey soup.
That had taken all the defiance they had in them. They had defied the Government once, with Luke. Mother came over and gave Luke’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze before turning back to the stove. Luke’s dad harrumphed, and paused in the midst of shoveling forkfuls of boiled potatoes into his mouth. There were plenty of how’s- How much rain’d the backfield get? How’s the planting going? Even what’s- What’d Matthew do with the five-sixteenth wrench? What’s Dad going to do about that busted tire? But why wasn’t considered much worth asking. It wasn’t a common question in the Garner house. Why? he asked at the supper table that night. He turned and walked into the house, as silently as a shadow. He reminded himself, I will never be allowed outside again. He laid his hoe down gently, and savored one last moment of feeling warm soil beneath his bare feet.
He took one extra breath of the fresh air, scented with clover and honeysuckle and-coming from far away-pine smoke. But on this day, the day they began taking the woods away, he hesitated. Even as a toddler, barely able to walk in the backyard’s tall grass, he had somehow understood the fear in his mother’s voice. He had never disobeyed the order to hide. Then he heard his mother call out the kitchen window: Luke! Inside. He saw the first tree shudder and fall, far off in the distance.
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