Once rescue workers pulled the body from the water and motored it to shore on a small boat, they hoisted it onto a gurney and covered it with a white sheet that soaked up the water and clung to its outline.
Without hesitation she asks me how many children I have. I feel caught in a lie. I fumble through an explanation about no kids, wished for them, late second marriage, didn’t happen.
They say I knew you before I was born. The sound of your voice. The music you play from vinyl records—The Andrew Sisters, Dean Martin, Etta James. The light of your cigarette.
I need to know: Where does my soul go when I black out? The pain in my head, the cold concrete floor mashed into my face soaked in a puddle of my own drool, the fuzzy nature of the world…
My father is traveling again, and my mother is sewing his shirts while a game show blares on TV. I stand by her chair, sifting through the jar of buttons. “Did you need something?” she asks.
We’re not the first people to work this 20-acre tract of Minnesota land we bought in May 2011. There’s abundant evidence of human activity… But has anyone tried to raise crops here?