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Only Henry knew that Emily had been up in the Jenny.

Only he noticed her restlessness, the way she gazed at the sky with a faraway look in her eyes in the days and weeks that followed.

He saw her excitement when she brought home the newspaper to show Dorothy the triumphant news that Amelia Earhart had succeeded in her attempt to fly solo across the Atlantic. Kansas was rightly proud of its girl.

“The first woman to do it!” she said as she spread the newspaper on the table. “And the fastest transatlantic crossing, too. Lindbergh will be furious! Look, Dorothy. She’d intended on flying to Paris, but she landed in a field in Derry, in Ireland. Surprised the heck out of the locals!”

The news of Miss Earhart’s success only reminded Emily of her flight with Adelaide.

“Still up there, aren’t you?” Henry said later that week as they fed and brushed the horses. “Still chasing the sunrise.”

Emily leaned her cheek against the old mare’s flank. “It was unforgettable, Henry. I wish you’d been there.”

“No, you don’t.” He looked at her fondly. “But I’m glad you came back. When I heard the plane taking off, I thought I’d lost you.”

“Of course I came back, Henry. I was always coming back.”

But she could just as easily have urged Adelaide to keep flying.

What she’d felt up there had frightened her, but not in the way she’d expected.

The scale of devastation she’d seen from above had shocked her, and the thought—even momentarily—that she didn’t want to go back down and face reality had scared her.

She’d tried to brush it off, forget it, but the nagging doubt remained that the thrilling adventure she’d chased by coming to Kansas had eluded her.

With the added responsibility for Dorothy, and the constant struggle to salvage something from their withering crops and finances, she was now as stuck and restless in Kansas as she’d once been when she’d clocked in and out at Field’s.

Annie’s words taunted her. “You don’t know the first thing about farming.

What if the crops fail, or a prairie fire rips through, or a tornado tears your home apart?

What if it all goes wrong? What if you hate it? ”

What if Annie was right?

As she combed the mare’s mane, Emily felt ashamed to see how thin the animal had become, and how dull her once-gleaming coat was now.

These hard years had taken their toll on them all.

She rubbed the mare’s velvet-soft muzzle and thought about the happy years when she was a new wife here, madly in love, longing for the intimate press of Henry’s body against hers.

Despite the hard work, life had seemed so simple then, their determination and dreams untouchable, but like the parched earth, their hopes and affections had cracked and hardened.

Now, too tired to make love, too concerned with the coming and going of crops and rain, too preoccupied with storms and dust, they’d neglected the most important thing of all: each other.

Dorothy’s arrival had only emphasized the distance between them.

She’d been with them just four short months, but it already felt much longer. Like the plague of ’hoppers that had devoured their winter wheat four summers ago, the child was an unstoppable force, whirling around their fragile little home like a tornado, disturbing the careful order of things.

Emily became increasingly exasperated by the child’s forgetfulness as she found another window left open or a trail of breadcrumbs not swept up: flies, ants, and mice the willing benefactors of the child’s absent-mindedness. Time and again, Emily reminded Dorothy. Time and again, Dorothy forgot.

“She’s only eight years old, Em,” Henry said as Emily reminded him about the latest mishap with the pigpen gate being left open. “Don’t be so hard on her.” He’d adapted more easily than Emily. He was able to forgive the child her mistakes and overlook her small acts of disobedience.

“Someone needs to be hard on her, Henry. The last thing we need is the animals wandering off, or a cottonmouth getting inside. She needs to pay attention, never mind wandering around with her head in a book or talking to imaginary friends.”

She hated to argue with Henry, but she was tired and couldn’t let the issue rest. Everyone was irritable lately, exhausted by the heat and tormented by the physical effects of the dust: the cracked skin, itchy eyes, sore throats.

Henry wouldn’t budge on the matter. “She’s just a child, Em. She’ll learn, in time.”

“And it looks like I’ll have to be the one to teach her, since you’re afraid to ever say no to her.”

Henry put down the pail of animal feed and ran his hands through his hair. “She doesn’t need a teacher, Emily. What she needs is a family, a mother and father.”

“But we’re not her mother and father, Henry. We will never be her mother and father.”

“Perhaps not on paper, but you could be more like a mother to her—love her like a mother—if you would only let yourself.”

His words cut through Emily like an axe through wood. Not quickly or cleanly, but in blunt heavy blows.

The wounds allowed her emotions to seep to the surface.

“I wish she’d never come here, Henry! We’ve had nothing but bad luck and cross words since.

I wish things could go back to how they were before Dorothy Gale ever set foot in Kansas!

” The words flew out of her in a temper.

She’d thought them privately, in her darkest moments, but had never intended to voice them out loud.

Henry was visibly shocked, his eyes wide, his face furrowed with concern. “You don’t mean that, Em.”

“Don’t I?”

She couldn’t even look at him. She walked out of the barn and kept walking, Henry’s apology smothered by the clouds of dust she left in her wake.

She walked to the creek at the edge of their claim and screamed her frustration and despair at the cloudless sky.

The once cold restorative waters were barely a trickle now as she sat on the hard earth and scraped at the surface of the creek bed with her nails, clawing her way in or out, she wasn’t sure.

She picked up a handful of the dust-dry earth and wondered which part of it had once been her child.

She held it to her heart and cried a river of her own.

It was dusk when she returned to the house.

Dorothy was playing hopscotch in the yard, such a lonely little thing, always on her own.

Henry was waiting on the porch. Relief crossed his face when he saw her. “I’m sorry, Em. I didn’t mean it. You’re doing a wonderful job. Of everything.”

She was too tired to fight anymore. “I’m sorry, too. I didn’t mean what I said.”

They accepted each other’s apology. What else could they do. The prairie was too lonely a place to bear a grudge. Besides, they needed each other. Now more than ever, they needed to find a way to work together, and a way for Dorothy to fit into the misshapen scraps of the life they had built here.

—

Nobody slept well, tossing and turning in the oppressive, stagnant heat as the last days of May slipped into June.

Whenever she did sleep, Emily was often awakened by the child’s fretful whimpers.

Not screams, but quiet panic, as if she were trapped in some place she couldn’t escape from.

By morning, the dream that had gripped her so thoroughly had dissolved to nothing other than a patchy memory about things falling from the sky and a black wind.

Always the black wind.

“It was just a dream, Dorothy. Nothing is falling from the sky.” But a sense of brooding disquiet took root in Emily’s mind as she recalled the fortune teller’s words at Ringling’s circus.

Nonsense , she told herself. A clever performance.

But more troubling even than the dreams was when Dorothy started to walk in her sleep.

The first time, she got no farther than the screen door before Emily woke with a start and guided her back to bed.

The second time, she got as far as the barn before the horses whinnying woke Henry.

Dorothy remembered nothing of it the next day.

“What if she walks farther, Henry? What if she falls down the well, or meets a coyote, or worse?”

“We can’t very well chain her to the bed, Em. We can lock and bolt the door, I guess.”

“And live like prisoners? Besides, she might find the key. We’ll have to think of something else.”

“Like what? Get a dog to guard the door?” Henry looked at Emily, his eyes crinkling into a smile. “Actually, that’s not a bad idea.”

“It’s a terrible idea, Henry.”

“You’re right. Forget I ever mentioned it.”

—

The puppy arrived the following week.

Emily watched through the window as Henry carried it from the car. She met him at the door with her hands on her hips.

“I hope that isn’t what I think it is, Henry Gale.”

He put the writhing creature into her hands. “It’s a dog, dear. Walks on four legs. Wags a tail. Occasionally barks.”

Emily held the puppy at arm’s length. It was a raggedy little thing, no bigger than a two-pound bag of sugar, its stiff little tail beating like a clock pendulum as it looked at her. “Yes, I can see it’s a dog. What I’d like to know is what is it doing here ?”

Henry pushed his hair from his eyes. “It’s a surprise. For Dorothy.”

“It’s a surprise all right. I thought we’d agreed a dog was a bad idea.”

“Did we? I don’t remember.”

Emily raised an eyebrow.

“Look at it, though.” Henry took the dog back into his arms. “Poor helpless little orphan.”

“And I presume this poor helpless little orphan is the fierce guard dog that will stop Dorothy from wandering at night. This creature is going to protect us all?”

Henry shrugged. “I guess.”

The dog licked Emily’s hand as she stroked it. “Wherever did you get it anyway?”

“A farmer out Kismet way. The mother was hit by a car in a dust storm. Left four puppies behind. It’ll do Dorothy good to have something to care for. Don’t you think?”

Emily let out a weary sigh. “I don’t know what to think anymore, Henry.”

“Then why don’t we let Dorothy decide? In fact, here she is now.”

Dorothy squealed. “A puppy! For me?” She scooped the dog into her arms and buried her face in its fur. “Oh, thank you, Auntie Em! Uncle Henry! I love him more than anything in the world!”

Henry looked at Emily and shrugged. “Looks like it’s staying, then.”

Emily turned away to hide the smile on her face.

That evening, Henry made the dog a bed from an old tomato crate lined with newspaper. Emily said the poor creature looked uncomfortable and stitched together a rough patchwork blanket from scraps of fabric in her sewing box.

“I thought you didn’t want a dog?” Henry teased as she set the blanket into the crate.

“I don’t. But if we must have one, it should at least be comfortable.”

It really was impossibly sweet, and despite worrying about feeding and caring for it, Emily couldn’t help being fond of the little thing.

“Have you thought of a name, Dorothy?” Henry asked.

She thought for a moment. “Toto.”

“ Toto? What on earth does that mean?”

“That’s what his bed says. Look!”

Emily looked at the old tomato crate. The dog’s head was covering the middle m and a , leaving the word To to . She laughed. “Toto it is, then! I think it quite suits her.”

“Him,” Dorothy corrected. “Toto’s a boy.”

She was so certain that Emily didn’t have the heart to correct her, nor the energy to explain why.

Henry took Toto’s paw and shook it. “Welcome to your new home, Toto.”

Emily watched as the child played with the little dog for hours, laughing as he hopped in and out of the basket. The sound of Dorothy’s laughter no longer sent a chill down her back. It was a sound she had come to cherish.

She sat back on her heels and took in the simple scene. A husband and wife. A child and her dog. They were an unconventional ragtag collection of strays and orphans and down-on-their-luck farmers, but somehow Toto had balanced them out and turned their odd little trio into something complete.

For a moment, she thought about the fortune teller’s words to Dorothy— But now you live in Kansas, with your aunt and uncle. And a little dog? —before quickly dismissing the notion that she had somehow known. A lucky guess was all.

The little house that had felt so small and empty for so long was full of love. As Emily looked around, she realized that what they didn’t have was more than made up for by what they did.

Emily stroked the dog’s head. “Welcome to the family, little Toto.”

The word hung in the air before settling around them.

Family.