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Dorothy’s inclination to rush ahead made Emily anxious as they made their way to Keogh & Sons, Attorneys.

She insisted the child hold her hand, even though Dorothy said she wasn’t a baby and didn’t need to hold hands anymore.

They walked at a different pace, their arms swinging awkwardly out of time, unable to find a rhythm to their step until Emily eventually gave in.

“Very well. You can walk beside me, but no running ahead. Or skipping.”

Dorothy folded her arms defiantly across her chest. “Walking is boring.”

Emily couldn’t argue with that. She’d been a restless child herself, always rushing ahead of her sisters, eager to be the first one there, wherever “there” was.

“You can run as far as you like on the prairie,” she offered, spotting a chance to cajole the child. “You can run and skip for miles there and never see a single motorcar.”

“What does the prairie look like?” Dorothy asked.

Finally, Emily was on familiar territory. “Everything’s much bigger there, for a start—the sky soars for miles above, the sun hangs like an enormous shimmering ball of gold, and we have hailstones big as apples. And when the wheat dances just before the harvest, oh my, it makes your heart soar.”

She sounded like the railroad salesmen pushing their promises of prosperity on the so-called suitcase farmers—city folk whose ill-advised and inexperienced endeavors at prairie farming inevitably came to nothing apart from fewer dollars in the bank and more abandoned claims turned to dust. And yet the prairie had once been the way Emily described it to Dorothy.

When she’d first arrived, she’d never seen a place more beautiful.

Now, millions of acres across the Great Plains had been deeply scarred by the new farm machinery and baked hard by the suffocating heat of last summer and months without rain.

Reports of a towering cloud of dust that had rolled across Amarillo last month had folk saying the earth was on the move.

But for all the prairie’s changes and challenges, Emily still longed to be back there.

Chicago was claustrophobic. Even the sky felt hemmed in, trapped between the skyscrapers that seemed to sway when she looked up at them.

She’d once loved the bustle and chaos of the city. Now it choked her.

“Does the prairie have shops?” Dorothy asked as they walked on, passing the stores that had survived the crash and the Depression.

“Of course! In the towns, at least. But the farm gives us most things we need. The windmill draws water from the well, the hens provide eggs, and the cows provide milk and cream, which we swap for coffee and sugar. Anything we can’t grow or provide for ourselves we buy at the general store.”

“What’s a general store? Is it like a department store? Like Marshall Field’s?”

Emily came to a sudden stop, the name Marshall Field’s stirring a vivid memory of rushing to work with Annie, both of them laughing as they chanted the store’s motto, “Give the lady what she wants!” and earning the sharp end of their supervisor’s tongue when they were late again.

As Field’s girls they’d thought they had the world at their feet, but war had cruelly turned their world upside down.

“A general store is like a very small department store, I suppose,” Emily replied.

“It has all the essentials like oatmeal and calico, ribbons for dresses, tobacco for the men.” As she described it, Emily wondered what Dorothy would make of their humble prairie home.

Kansas was a world away from Chicago’s skyscrapers and the instant convenience of department stores.

“What if the general store doesn’t have the things you need?” Dorothy asked.

Her endless questions were exhausting. Emily’s head ached and her patience was wearing thin.

“Then we do without.”

Her words were well timed as they passed a long line of men waiting for their share of the city’s benevolence at the soup kitchens and ten-cent flop-houses.

Struggle and loss were etched on their faces.

If Emily felt changed by the seven years since she’d left Chicago, the city was almost unrecognizable after the depression that had followed the stock market crash of ’29.

A vibrant place that had once sold the promise of a better life to ambitious men now saw those same sorry souls selling nickel apples on street corners.

Emily bought two from a pale-faced man and wished him better times ahead, all too aware that he would need to sell an orchard full of apples to get back on his feet.

She gave an apple to Dorothy in the hope that the process of eating it would at least keep the child quiet for a few minutes.

As they turned the final block, Dorothy ran ahead to chase a piece of paper being blown down the street. Emily’s cries to slow down were either unheard or ignored. When Dorothy caught the paper beneath her shoe, she stooped to pick it up.

“Look, Auntie Em! The circus is in town!”

“Let me see.” Emily studied the pamphlet’s bold declarations of Incredible Wonders!

and Astonishing Marvels! and the promise of Lions!

and Tigers! and Bears! and Other Exotic and Wild Animals!

She turned it over to read the announcements on the reverse, her mind tumbling back through the years as she did so.

Dorothy tugged on her coat sleeve. “Can we go? Please!”

Emily looked at Dorothy’s eager face and saw herself as a young girl again, Annie and Nell beside her, eyes wide in amazement as the red velvet curtain was pulled back and they stepped inside Ringling’s circus tent for the first time.

They’d never known such excitement, never seen a more thrilling spectacle than the brightly painted wagons and signs promoting the mysterious sideshow attractions.

She could almost smell the wet grass and paraffin, the musty scent of the animals, the sugar-sweet aroma of cotton candy floating through the crowds.

She could almost hear the gasps and cheers and thunderous applause.

Every year, they’d returned to see the crystal gazers and the beautiful bareback riders tumbling and turning as the horses galloped around the ring, the lion tamers in their scarlet jackets cracking their whips, Mademoiselle Beaudelaire on the high wire, the Aerial Lorraines soaring on their trapeze overhead, defying gravity.

Every year was more mesmerizing, the grand finale more thrilling than the last. Introducing Leonardo Stregone as The Amazing Aerialist!

See him Ascend to Impossible Heights! She could see Annie’s face illuminated by the electric lights, the sense of wonder in her eyes.

She could still remember the prickle of danger in the air as the snare drum began to roll and the finale act began and the gathered crowd fell silent.

“Auntie Em? Please!”

Emily stirred as Dorothy tugged at her sleeve, and looked again at the leaflet in her hand. A sense of relief washed over her as she noticed the date.

“I’m afraid this is several months old, Dorothy. Look. It’s from last year.”

Dorothy was bitterly disappointed. “I wish we could have gone. Mommy loved the circus.”

“She did. Very much.”

Too much.

Emily reached for Dorothy’s hand. This time, the child took it without complaint.

“I’m sorry, Dorothy. There’ll be other chances to see the circus, I’m sure.

Plenty of traveling carnivals pass through Kansas.

And we have the county fair to look forward to.

There’s always plenty to see there. Now, come along, or we’ll be late for our appointment. ”

She folded the pamphlet and pushed it into her coat pocket, mindful of the dozens of circus tickets and posters Annie had diligently kept over the years, carefully packed away with her precious hourglass.

Not just a treasured collection of memories but a collection of memories within which her greatest secret was held.

And Emily was now the reluctant custodian of it all.

—

Keogh & Sons’ office was in a high-rise overlooking the Soldier Field stadium. Dorothy was fascinated to be up so high, especially as a distant rain shower had left a double rainbow arcing over the city, but Emily kept well away from the windows.

“It’s terrifying up here,” she said as she took off her hat and gloves. “Aren’t you afraid it’ll fall over?”

Mr.Keogh Sr. assured Emily the building was made from concrete and steel and was perfectly safe. “Not a fan of the skyscrapers, Mrs.Gale?”

“Not a fan of heights,” she said. “I’m definitely not in Kansas anymore, that’s for sure. The tallest thing there is the windmill on our farm, and that’s not much bigger than a house.” She gladly took the seat on the opposite side of the room, beside Mr.Keogh Sr.’s desk.

“How is she doing?” he asked.

They quietly observed Dorothy for a moment as she launched into an intense conversation with her toy lion.

“I’m not entirely sure,” Emily replied. “One minute she seems remarkably unaffected, the next she becomes quiet and withdrawn. She talks to her toys a lot. Dorothy has a very vivid imagination.”

“What seven-year-old doesn’t?”

“You have children?”

“Five of the dreadful things! Which, I might add, is four too many.” His mouth curved into a smile. “Of course, I love them all dearly.” He moved a pile of paperwork from a filing tray onto his desk. “Now, let’s get down to business, shall we. I don’t want to keep you any longer than necessary.”

It was an uncomfortable process, chilling in its formality.

The legal statutes and lengthy forms cared nothing for the devastating tragedy that summoned them from their filing cabinets.

Sign here, initial there, every scratch of the pen searing the permanence of events onto Emily’s heart like a branding iron.

Finally, the last form was stamped and the transfer of ownership was complete, as if Dorothy were nothing more than a horse being traded at the county fair.

“That’s everything, Mrs.Gale. You and Henry are now Dorothy’s legal guardians.”