Chapter 1

They tell me it was an IED hidden in a truck full of goats going to market, pulled off to the side of the road with an apparent flat tire.

But of that I have no memory.

            I rubbed small pebbles between my fingers. The sun burned hot on the scarf on my head and dust was thick in my mouth. A goat cried out – no, not a goat. A chicken.  Not crying in fear or pain but clucking with hungry impatience.

I opened my eyes and studied the objects in my hand. Not stones, but chickenfeed. On my head was a Toronto Blue Jay’s baseball cap, not a scarf, and the land around me was lush and green and fertile, not brown and destroyed.

            The bird stared at me. Tiny black eyes in front of a tiny brain. Only a chicken. A white rock hen pecking for worms and bugs in a patch of weeds and over-grown grasses in a farmyard in Prince Edward County, Ontario.

Memory flooded back, and I knew where I was, and I threw a handful of grain onto the ground. Chickens rushed to feed.

My sister was watching me, frozen in the act of crossing the yard, her face pinched with worry. “Okay, Hannah?”

“Okay.”

“Good,” she said. “After you’ve finished that, collect the eggs, will you. I want to make a cake this afternoon for Lily’s birthday.”

“Will do.” I put on what I hoped was a convincing smile. Joanne gave me a long look before she continued down the path toward the greenhouse.

I let out a sigh and tossed the rest of the grain onto the ground. Eager chickens came running from all directions. Pressure was building behind my right eye and I hurried to get out of the glare of the rising sun into the dark, cool henhouse.  

I don’t care for chickens. Noisy, vicious, stupid beasts. I tried to get them out of the coop before venturing in to raid the nests. A pair of heavy yellow work gloves was kept on a nail by the door, and I slipped them on to offer my hands some protection in case one of the birds had remained behind to defend her eggs. They didn’t want me stealing their offspring out from underneath them and used their sharp beaks to fight me off.    

Isn’t that what mothers do? Protect their children?

The coop was dark and quiet, all the residents outside enjoying the spring sunshine. I collected ten large brown eggs and laid them gently into a wicker basket. The heavy smell of ammonia and straw both fresh and molding that permeated the hen house did nothing for my oncoming headache.

We were raised in the city, Joanne and I. In a proper modern bungalow in a neat well laid-out suburb on a street lined with Norway Maples and houses exactly the same as ours. Why my sister took so eagerly and happily to the life of a small-scale farmer is a mystery to me.

Perhaps not a total mystery. I came out of the chicken coop, egg basket over my arm, in time to see my brother-in-law Jake Stewart climbing into his truck, ready to deliver the first of the spring produce to local restaurants. He lifted a well-muscled arm in a lazy greeting but didn’t give me a smile. I waved in return.  

I put the eggs on the kitchen counter and dropped into a chair. Pain lurked behind my right eye, a black spot, evil and threatening and ever present. Sunlight streamed through the French doors leading to the deck, and the old farmhouse was beginning to heat up. I closed my eyes, knowing I had to get upstairs and lie down while I could.

“Would you like me to fetch your pills, Aunt Hannah?” said a soft voice behind me.

“Thank you, dear, but no. I’ve had enough for now.”

“They don’t help much, do they?”

“I’m sorry to say they don’t. But this will pass, and I’ll be fine soon.”

Sunlight had been strong in my eyes when it happened. Afghanistan. Where the sun always shone in a sk