Free Homeland and Other Stories by Barbara Kingsolver Page A

“She’ll love the idea,” Lena assured me. “She’s always complaining how she never sees her grandkids.” Ursula lived sixteen miles away on a declining apple orchard and cattle farm.
    It cost us several damaged fingers to get Melinda into her car seat, but she gratified us by falling instantly to sleep.
    â€œDo you think maybe it’s different when they’re your own?” Lena whispered as we drove. I did not hazard a guess.
    The rural setting did seem to do some good. Melinda was no longer belligerent, only energetic. We carried her kicking and squirming, and providing commentary on the cats and cow flops, out to what Ursula called the “June orchard.” She’d hired a neighbor to keep a picnic spot mowed all summer for the benefit of her grandchildren on the remote chance that they might visit. Ursula led the way in her stout garden shoes, swinging the picnic basket and pointing out blighted trees, their knotted trunks oozing sweet sap and buzzing with insects. Lena was right, she needed company.
    We spread the blanket and laid out the food, cracked open soda cans, and bribed Melinda with grapes. Her speed was a problem. Having postponed walking for so long, her crawl was proficient beyond belief.
    â€œHoney, stay in the short grass. There are blackberry briars and stickery things out there,” Lena warned. But Melinda continued to streak out for the high brush like a wild thing seeking its origins. Between every two bites of my sandwich I dragged her back by the legs.
    â€œWell, here’s to the new generation,” Lena said, raising her root beer. She drank a long gulp, throwing her head back. Then she stood up suddenly, gazed at me with a look of intent misery, and spat out something that twitched on the grass. Ursula and I both leaned forward to look. It was a hornet.
    We watched, stupefied, as Lena sank to her knees, then sat down, and then lay full length on the ground. The valves of my heart slammed like doors.
    Anaphylactic shock is an impossible thing to expect from a human body: a defense mechanism gone terribly wrong. Normally the blood swells around a foreign protein to flush it away, but when that happens in every cell of the body at once it looks from the outside like a horror movie.
    I looked around for Melinda. She had reached the edge of the clearing and stopped, looking back at us with fearful expectation. “Get her,” I shouted at Ursula, “and get some help, as fast as you can. If you need a car, take ours.” I thrust the keys at her. Ursula knew as well as I did the urgency of the situation, but being the one with the most to lose, I suppose I needed to take command. Ursula scooped a hand under each of Melinda’s armpits and ran for the house. I knelt beside Lena. Her face and throat were swollen, but she was breathing.
    â€œIn my purse,” Lena said quietly, and then she said nothing more, and I was afraid she was going to die. That those would beher last words: “In my purse.” But then she said, with her eyes still closed, “That purple cloisonné case. Get that.”
    I did so, having no idea why. I fiddled frantically with the clasp and then nearly dropped it at the sight of what lay inside. There was a cool, hateful-looking needle and a glass bubble of clear liquid.
    Lena told me, in a businesslike way except for occasional long pauses, how to attach the bubble to the needle, turn it once, and jab it into her arm. When I couldn’t get her sleeve rolled up, she said to shoot through the shirt. My hands were shaking. It was mostly out of an aversion for operations like this that I went into the study of plants, leaving flesh and blood to others.
    Almost immediately she started to breathe more deeply. She lay still without opening her eyes, and I would have thought she was sleeping except for the tightness of her grip on my hand.
    â€œHave you always carried that?” I asked.
    She nodded.
    In