Free More Than Allies by Sandra Scofield

afternoons. There was an irrigation ditch along the back of the property, fruit trees, berry bushes, several abandoned cars. It was like country, so close in.
    They walked up the gravel drive past the house. There wasn’t any sign of life. “We’re trespassing, you know,” Maggie said. Jay paid no attention. Who would care? Maybe the neighbors, but probably not. The property was three-and-a-half or four acres, the house shaded on both sides with large poplars. And they weren’t hurting anything.
    Behind the house the property inclined sharply, and then opened onto a rolling meadow. What was left of a shed or small barn lay low to the ground. Someone, at some time, had taken the roof right off the shed and set it on the ground, but because the roof was high-peaked, there was still room to walk beneath it. Jay headed straight there.
    He knelt down by a broken concrete slab and poked at the ground. Maggie asked him what he was looking for.
    â€œChipmunks. Sometimes Dad and me would go to lunch and bring back french fries and they’d eat them, one at a time.” He stood up abruptly. “They’re not there,” he said curtly, but as he walked away he looked around and his expression brightened.
    Just before the opening to the shed there was a hillock of ferns. He said, “Watch, Mom!” then turned and flung himself backwards onto the mound. Spread-eagled, he lay nested in the soft foliage and smiled at her. “Come on,” he said. “It’s soft as pillows.”
    She thought about the green stains on his white T-shirt, and she thought about what might be crawling in the grass. She shook her head.
    He sat up. “What’d we come for?” he said, but he headed into the ruins of the shed.
    Maggie followed him under the roof, climbing over old beams and odd hunks of lumber. Near the middle of the length of it was an open place in the roof, and in the ground where the light hit, grass and a few sprigs of violets had sprung up. Someone had been here fairly recently—there were the sooty remains of a small fire, and an empty pork and beans can.
    â€œLook, Mom!” Jay said, digging at the little mound of ashes with a stick.
    â€œThat’s not very smart,” Maggie said. “Dry as it is around here.”
    â€œOh Mom. ”
    She sat on a beam. The sun shone on her face and felt fine. She closed her eyes and didn’t pay any attention to her son as he poked around. When she looked up again, she didn’t see him. For a moment she was alarmed, then saw through the other end of the shed that he had gone out on the grass. She followed. The sun was bright in her eyes. He darted towards her, holding a long skinny branch. “Halt and surrender!” he cried.
    â€œPut that down!” She batted at the piece of wood. “You could put my eye out.”
    He threw the stick on the ground and stomped on it. It cracked loudly. “Fuck,” he said.
    â€œWhat did you say?” She grabbed his arm.
    He wrenched away. “When I come here with Dad it’s fun!” he cried. “We play knights and lances. We made rosehip tea once.”
    â€œWell, your dad isn’t here now,” she said, sorry as soon as she said it. She marched off toward the road again, hoping he was behind her.
    â€œGirls are babies,” he said when they paused by the car. “Scared of everything. Even a little twig.”
    She bit her lip and got in the car. “I’m not girls,” she said when he was in, too. “I’m your mother.”
    â€œToo bad,” Jay said. He was just a boy, he was angry, he was grabbing for the first thing to say. Maggie knew all that, but it still made her want to cry.
    â€œFasten your belt,” she said sharply.
    Instead, he crawled over the car seat with a thud and settled in the back. At Polly’s house, they headed for separate bedrooms. Stevie, who had been in the living room with Polly, toddled