The Keepers of Secrets

Three | Hurts Like Fire

"So that's why you asked me? 'Cause we're good friends?"

"Yep. Mama said we'd be a good husband and wife."

Sally Jean thought about it. "Okay," she ended up agreeing. "But we're having all girls."

"Aw, heck no!" Clyde shouted, reaching the big branch that they liked to sit on. "I want boys."

"Well I want girls! I ain't gonna marry you unless we have all girls."

"Ugh, fine, we'll have girls." He frowned, straddling the branch as he waited for Sally Jean to join him. "How do you even make them all girls, anyways? Can you pick?"

Sally Jean climbed onto the branch next, seating herself in front of Clyde. "I think you gotta pray real hard. I prayed that Anne would be a girl when Mama was pregnant. That's probably how your mama ended up with all boys. She must've prayed a lot."

"I don't think it works like that, Sally Jean, 'cause Mama said she wanted a girl and she never got one."

"Huh." Sally Jean frowned. Maybe she just hasn't gotten her baby girl yet."

Clyde scrunched up his nose. "Ew. I don't want a baby sister. Don't say that, Sally Jean." He looked out towards the empty pasture nearest to them through the magnolia branches. "Hey, look, they're back from school!" He pointed at where Jory and Paulie rode in the field together.

They watched as Paulie jumped the fence and into the pasture where the cows grazed, spooking a few. Jory stayed in the empty pasture, practicing riding on Zip.

Sally Jean thought he looked handsome in his Stetson hat and worn blue jeans. So handsome that she said, "Jory looks stupid in that hat."

Clyde laughed, he always liked making fun of his older brother. "Yeah, I told him it looks like a girl's hat. You oughta tell him that, too." He grinned. "He'll get so mad."

"Okay, I will," Sally Jean promised. She looked up at the clouds through the tree canopy, sighing to herself. Big, fluffy clouds always reminded her of the old Mama, the Mama that would garden and sing and lay out on the grass and find hidden pictures in the clouds with Sally Jean.

She missed that Mama.

"Clyde, when do you think the war'll be over?" Sally Jean asked, snapping off a small branch from the tree and using it to etch designs into the bark.

Clyde shrugged. "I dunno. Mama thinks it'll end here soon, but Daddy says it's still got a couple more years."

"Why do people even go to war?"

"Mama said it's 'cause there ain't no peace down here," Clyde informed, watching her scrape at the bark. "She said only real peace exists in Heaven because everybody up there don't have to worry about being angry and wantin' other people's stuff."

Sally Jean thought about that. "So, if there's no real peace here, then we'll always have war?"

"I guess so. Mama said that there'll always be people that have the devil in their hearts down here." He shrugged again. "I dunno. Ask my mama 'bout it. She's real good at answering questions—or why don't you ask your mama?"

"My mama ain't good at answerin' questions," she said. A long time ago, Sally Jean could ask her anything, but now Mama would get annoyed if Sally Jean pestered her with questions, so she stopped.

"Hey! Rudy's playing with the piglets!" Clyde yelled out, pointing to the pigpen in the distance. Sally Jean twisted around to spot the pale boy with the mop of orange hair holding a piglet against his chest, the sow he took it from sticking her snout through the wood slats of the fence to try and bite him.