Thomas was in the barn. Clara untied her apron. Emma, she said, take your brothers upstairs and stay there until I come and get you. Emma looked out the window. She looked back at Clara.
What is it? Emma said. I don't know yet, Clara said. But I'm going to find out. Go.
Emma went. She moved quickly and efficiently the way she did when she understood something was serious. And Clara heard her gathering Luke and Noah from the other room. And the sound of four small feet on the stairs became eight small feet. And then the upstairs hall.
And then quiet. Jacob appeared in the kitchen doorway. He had heard the buggies, too. He looked at Clara. Clara looked at him.
Get your father, she said. He was out the back door before she finished the sentence. She went to the front door and opened it and stood on the porch. Harold Reese climbed down from the first buggy with his professional pleasantness already arranged on his face. Miss Bennett, he said, "is Mr.
Callahan available?" "He'll be here momentarily," she said. "Would you like to introduce your companions?" The woman in the second buggy was being helped down by the man with the county seal. She moved with the careful deliberateness of someone who is used to being waited for and accepts it as correct.
"This is Mrs. Katherine Harlow," Reese said, "and Mr. David Pruitt from the county welfare office." Clara looked at the man with the county seal. Her chest did something cold and specific.
Welfare office. She understood then. All at once, completely the way understanding sometimes comes, not gradually, but as a single sudden drop into cold water. This was not about the land. This had never only been about the land.
"Mr. Reese," she said, and her voice came out level because she made it, "what exactly is the purpose of this visit?" Reese had the grace to look at least partially uncomfortable. "There have been some concerns raised," he said, "about the welfare of the children on this property, their living situation, the adequacy of their care." "Raised by whom?"
"By concerned citizens," Mrs. Harlow said. She had a voice that matched her posture. "It is the county's responsibility to ensure that children in this county are being properly provided for." "These children," Clara said, "are being properly provided for."