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“Are you ready?” she asked with a smile.

“Sure.”

Cheryl took her hand then, entwining their fingers, and pulled her through a small gap in the bushes until they were on the other side. And there it was.

“Wow!”

“See? I told you so,” Cheryl said.

It was a massive field of sunflowers that were probably ready to be harvested; they were so tall. As far as her eyes could see, it was only a clear blue sky and a field of sunflowers.

“We can hide out here. No one can find us.”

Diana looked at her and asked, “Who’s field is this?”

“My uncle’s. My dad didn’t want the farm his daddy left, so my uncle took it over a few years ago from my granddad. My dad’s a writer for the local paper. He’s going to be editor someday.”

“You write for theschoolpaper.”

“I do, yeah. I love it, too. He’s been teaching me how to be a good reporter. Do you want to sit? There’s space over here. For whatever reason, this spot never grows flowers. Year after year, they’ve tried everything, but it’s like the soil just doesnotwant to let them grow.”

“I can’t get my skirt dirty,” she said. “I don’t have that many.”

“You’ve got a petticoat under it, right?”

“If that’s the thing that’s under it, then, yeah.”

Cheryl laughed and said, “Take off this part.” She pulled on the skirt a bit. “And you can hang it on the bushes behind us. I’ll do it, too.”

“Do you like these skirts?”

“Some of them, not all. I like when I can wear just one and not layers, especially when it’s hot outside like in summer, but in the winter, it’s nice to have them.”

Diana watched as Cheryl undid her belt and hung it on the bushes behind them. Then, she watched and swallowed as Cheryl removed the outer layer of her red skirt, hanging it up, too, and revealing a white petticoat undergarment.

“Come on. You too,” Cheryl encouraged.

“Oh, right,” she replied.

Then, Diana saw something she had no explanation for. She was standing in front of a tub of soapy water, bent over, with one of those old washing boards her grandmother used to use because she didn’t like the newer washing machines. She was scrubbing something, maybe a shirt or a dress, with her hands.

“They’ve run off to hunt,” someone said.

She looked up and saw her. Shoulders, which had been up to her ears, lowered, and all her stress was gone in that moment because the woman she loved was here. Their husbands, whom they both hated and who were in the way of them being truly happy, had gone on a hunting trip early that morning to help them get through winter. Now, they had a few days together, at least, before the men would return.

“Put the wash away for later, and let’s go inside,” the woman she loved told her before she hurried over, picking up her dress to avoid it getting dirty, and kissed her square on the mouth.

“I missed you,” she said.

“I missed you, too.”

“Diana?”

Diana saw Cheryl then, but it washerCheryl, not the other woman in the vision that had just played in her mind.

“Elizabeth,” she whispered, knowing that that version of Cheryl had been named Elizabeth and her own name had been Bess, a derivative of the same name, because her mother had loved the name that everyone else had been giving their daughters, too.

“What?” Cheryl asked.