Denial

He called it “his ranch,” yet each winter day found her beside him feeding hay to hungry cows. In summer heat you would find her in the hayfield— cutting, raking, baling, stacking. In between she kept the books, cooked, cleaned laundered, fed bum lambs. Garden rows straight, canned jars of food lined cellar walls. Then she died. I asked him how he would manage. “Just like I always have,” he said.