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The kitchen air was thick with the sweet scent of plums, all lined up on the windowsill to ripen.

Adele swiped the biggest one as she ran past. There was no one downstairs to tell her she couldn’t.

To tell her to slow down, to walk like a young lady.

Her father and brothers were upstairs putting on their Sunday suits while her mother was pinning up Pauline’s hair and buttoning her into her ivory silk wedding dress.

Adele had been instructed to sit still and wait.

She wasn’t allowed to put on her own dress until the last minute; her mother wasn’t taking any chances.

She’d squirmed on the horsehair settee in the parlor for a quarter of an hour—watching the hand on the mantel clock judder forward one slow tick at a time—before deciding she could wait just as well out in the near barn.

The screen door thwapped shut behind her.

She winced—if only she’d caught it before it slammed.

“Adele!” her mother hollered, leaning out Pauline’s window.

“Get back in the house this instant!” Adele pretended not to hear.

It was raining, on a wedding day, which had put all the grown-ups in a bad mood.

Pauline had nearly cried at breakfast. “Don’t,” said their mother.

“It’ll swell your eyes up.” Pauline had dabbed at her eyes with her napkin, eaten very little, then taken herself upstairs.

Adele had been sent to do her sister’s chores, plus her own.

It had occurred to her as she swept the back steps that with Pauline gone, she’d have to sweep them tomorrow, and the next day, and every day after.

Another reason to hate Claude Demmings. As if it weren’t bad enough that he was taking her sister away. The only way to escape the extra work would be to get married herself. And since she had no intention of ever doing that, she was in a pickle.

She raced past the untidy garden beds. Ugh. The squash. Another of Pauline’s jobs. Now Adele would be the one to turn them and pick the slugs off. She ran on, past the chicken pen, the final outpost of her mother’s territory, to the barns and cribs. Her father’s domain.

Walking now, not minding the rain, she bit into the plum. Juice dripped down her chin. They wouldn’t like that, but if she got herself into enough of a state, maybe they’d decide to call the whole thing off.

She chucked the pit, wiped her hands across the bib of her overalls as she entered the near barn, and came to a stop before the high wheeler.

Still new enough that men from nearby ranches kept finding reasons to stop by.

Adele had watched with pride as they circled it, running their hands along the fenders, inspecting the headlamps and the gasoline engine.

She hauled herself up into the seat, grasped the steering wheel with her sticky hands, and dropped so deep into pretending to drive that she didn’t hear Pauline until she called out, “What are you doing up there? Mother’s ready to tan you. You want Daddy in on that too?”

Adele took it as a good sign that her sister was still in her day dress. Maybe they’d arrive late enough to the church that Claude would just go away. She patted the seat, inviting Pauline up. “You must be joking. And get all greasy on my wedding day?”

“There’s not a speck of grease up here. Daddy’d never allow it.”

Pauline toed the footboard twice before deciding to trust it. She accepted the hand Adele offered (“Oh, sticky!”) and pulled herself up onto the seat. “Why are you torturing Mother today?”

The barn smelled like gasoline and musty old hay, but Pauline smelled like lilacs. Adele snuggled close to her sister and took a big sniff. “Dellie, it’s going to be all right. I’m only two miles away. We’ll still see each other all the time. I promise.”

Pauline stroked Adele’s hair back from her forehead. As always, her sister’s touch settled her mind. The notion of Pauline getting married grew a little less terrible, a little more tolerable. After several minutes, Pauline stopped. “Okay now?” Adele nodded.

“Good. Let’s get you cleaned up at the pump. You can bring your dress to my room and we’ll get ready together.” Pauline placed each foot just so as she stepped down from the high wheeler.

“It itches,” said Adele as she jumped down beside her sister.

“There are worse things than an itchy dress.”

That was true. Pauline marrying Claude Demmings, for instance.

The next evening after supper, Adele washed and dried the dishes by herself.

The plums on the windowsill had begun to wrinkle.

She took another and went back out to the near barn.

There was no need to run this time. Her mother had left her alone all day, hadn’t even complained about her wearing John’s hand-me-down overalls, because Adele had behaved herself at the wedding the day before.

She’d washed her face and neck and even behind her ears, removing every trace of sticky plum juice.

She’d worn the itchy dress without complaint, clutched Pauline’s enormous bunch of flowers without fidgeting.

And after it was all over, she’d kissed her sister sweetly.

She wasn’t sure how long her freedom would last, but she planned to savor every bit of it.

She devoured the fruit in two bites. She was always hungry, and growing much too tall, according to her mother, who seemed to think limiting Adele’s portions at meals would remedy that.

Adele wiped her hands on her overalls and slipped into the barn, intending to climb up on the high wheeler again.

To pretend she was driving it around the ranch.

When she was big enough, she hoped her father would let her.

John and James didn’t even have to ask. There was no point in asking for herself until she could reach the pedals.

Besides, she had a more immediate request for her father.

No lantern light shone from the barn, and she’d expected to have it to herself.

She heard a snuffle and looked up to see a shape—someone already sitting on the high wheeler seat.

Her father passed a hand over his eyes and cleared his throat.

“Hey, Dellie girl. Come to look at the truck?” She heard the smile in his voice.

Certain things that her mother couldn’t abide, such as Adele wearing her brother’s overalls and taking an interest in machinery, her father found amusing.

“Yes, sir.”

“Come on up, then.”

She climbed up and sat next to him. There wasn’t much space—her father was a big man. Wide across the shoulders, like one of his bulls. The cold from the metal seat seeped through Adele’s overalls, and she shivered. He put an arm around her. “Missing your sister?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Me too.” His voice sounded raspy. He took a big breath and then let it out. “But it can’t be helped. Natural order of things. You’ll go and get married, too, someday.”

Just over a year ago in the schoolyard, Adele had gotten married.

Dickie Greer had tied a buttercup stem around her finger, and she’d kissed him, right on the lips, in front of everyone.

Dickie had white-blond hair, pale gray eyes, and big front teeth.

She thought his teeth made a nice match with her nose, which she’d gotten from her father.

A nose that was angular and severe—a long sight from the cute button Pauline had inherited from their mother.

Dickie had a purplish scar on his left temple, and he refused, even after the ceremony, to tell Adele how he’d gotten it. He was a boy of mystery.

Several other weddings immediately followed theirs.

Then the boys galloped off on their pretend horses, shouting that supper had better be ready when they came home.

Adele stood watching them fire their six-shooters at one another, pretend to fall down dead, and then leap back onto their horses.

This was a game she usually joined. She was dismayed that Dickie had ridden off without calling for her to follow.

She saddled up her own pretend horse and galloped after Dickie. “Hey, husband,” she shouted when she caught up to him.

Dickie wheeled around. “Adele, you can’t be a cowboy.”

She didn’t see why not—she’d been a cowboy plenty of times. But since this was their wedding day, she humored him. “I’m a cowgirl!”

He scowled. “We don’t have any cowgirls in this game. You got to go back to the girls and get the meal ready.”

“Cooking’s boring,” said Adele. “I’m gonna ride horses with you all.”

But the boys, Dickie included, weren’t having that.

Every time Adele caught up with them, they rode off somewhere else.

Every time she tried to talk to them, one said, “Wives got to stay in the house.” Eventually Dickie took pity on her.

“You could plant a garden or something if you don’t want to cook. ”

Despite her mother’s daily pestering, Adele had never thought of herself as on her way to becoming a grown lady. One who would be expected to cook, and sew, and garden, and play the piano.

Getting married, like Pauline had just done, seemed like locking yourself up in jail. She would never get married. But now was not the time to tell her father this. Not when she wanted to ask him for something so important.

Sitting still on the chilly truck seat was impossible.

There was always an itch to scratch, a rhythm her fingers needed to tap out, some bug or pollen speck drifting past that demanded grabbing.

She wriggled and scratched and tapped until her father said, “What’s got into you, Dellie girl? Something on your mind?”

“Well, I’m turning twelve soon.”

“Twelve! My goodness.” It was the sort of thing he would say if he were teasing, but his voice sounded sad. So sad it almost made her stop talking. But he would never think to give her what she wanted on his own. She had to ask—it was the only way.