Free Asked For by Colleen L. Donnelly

back. These were her grasses, grasses that didn’t, yet did, belong to Grandma. A road and fields that weren’t Grandma’s either, but they were hers, because they were landmarks of home. Lana pinned her gaze on the horizon, waiting for the low-pitched roof that was theirs—Grandma’s—and the cottonwood tree next to it she’d never thought much about until now. Why hadn’t she cared about it when she was a girl? Now that tree was like a beacon, a comfort, a memory of the way things used to be.
    “Right there!” She didn’t mean to shout, but she did, and she pointed, acting like Magdalena instead of herself. Ella stirred, Betsy opened her eyes, and Carl gunned the engine, eating up the last of the road between her and her old home. The truck bounded into the lane the same way Cletus’ had bounded out. Lana squeezed Magdalena tighter as she scanned Grandma’s weedy yard, unpainted chicken coop, and sagging shed where they always kept a milk cow. She and Grandma’d written letters to each other, Grandma with little to say and Lana with little she wanted to say on paper. She’d told Grandma she’d be here one day this week, depending on Carl’s schedule and Cletus not changing his mind. It didn’t matter if Grandma didn’t know what day they would come. Grandma would be here. Like Lana, she rarely went anywhere.
    Before Carl stopped, Grandma’s thin form appeared in the doorway of the shed. Her hair was neat, neater than usual, as if she’d taken more care this morning. Her dress was tucked evenly within a makeshift belt, another scrap of material promoted to something more glorious than being just a rag. Lana pressed her hand against the truck’s window as Carl slowed to stop, watching Grandma’s form disappear on the other side of Lana’s fingers. She wanted to grasp her grandmother and hold on as she passed, remake the connection she never realized they had until it was gone, soak in some of Grandma’s wisdom that had always been there teaching her, though she just hadn’t realized it until now.
    “Grandma,” Lana said to Magdalena. Her daughter stared out the window, lifted her tiny hand, and plastered it next to Lana’s on the glass.
    Lana dropped out of the truck’s cab the instant Carl stopped. With Magdalena on one hip, she reached for Betsy and settled her sleepy daughter on the other, her stomach, where the next child lay, protruding between her two girls. She balanced herself like a tightrope performer, pivoted toward Grandma, and waddled her way. “Grandma…” Her voice sounded like a child’s, the knot in her throat choking the confidence she’d meant to portray. Grandma’s face looked just like Lana felt, and Lana knew she understood.
    Betsy nuzzled her head against Lana’s shoulder as they drew up in front of Grandma. Magdalena squirmed and made gleeful nonsense noises. Lana gripped her tighter.
    “My, aren’t you a sight!” Grandma tried to sound brash and bossy, but her eyes betrayed how happy she really was. Lana hadn’t thought to come here not looking like a sight. Her dresses were all baggy—until she was pregnant, like now. Then they bulged forward, hiking the skirt up in front, making her dress look like a bell in the middle of a toll. She wore her auburn hair longer now because Cletus liked it that way, but it was pulled back out of Magdalena’s and Betsy’s reaches. And no makeup. She’d come plain, the way she always was, plain and tired.
    “I probably am a sight.” Lana felt her face flush, but tried to ignore it. She wasn’t here to be told how good she looked. She was here to see Grandma, see herself and her new life against her old one and the person who’d told her how this new one was supposed to be lived.
    “You look just fine, actually.” A tall shadow filled the shed’s doorway behind Grandma. “If anything, you’re a sight for sore eyes.”
    “Jim…”
    Jim Dillon stepped from the shed’s dark interior. He’d changed. She was shocked at