Lina stood at the end of the cornfield, looking wistfully at the woods beyond. Her soft dark curls bounced, unrestrained, behind her back. Tall and slender, she had a healthy strength about her that betrayed her years on a farm.

"Are those ears ready to harvest?"

Lina took a tentative step toward the beckoning woods. She had never visited her woody neighbor - she was forbidden to go into the wilds of the forest, but she dreamt of it.

"Lina, are the ears ready to harvest? Are you listening to me?"

Lina turned reluctantly and looked at her mother. She smiled at the woman, just fourteen years older than she. Life had been hard on her, and it made Lina sad. She knew she must have been beautiful at one time, but years in the sun and hard labor had made her age beyond her 28 years.

"I hear you, Mama," Lina said. "The ears are ready for plucking, but must we do it tomorrow? It's my birthday. Come on, July 1st shouldn't be for picking."

"It's up to your grandfather."

"It's always up to him. Why does he get to make the decisions?"

"Because he's the man," Mindy started, and then grinned.

"This is 1982, Mama."

"I know, Sweetheart. Some things have changed over the years, but others have not. Your grandpa is still in charge, and we are lucky he lets us stay here free of rent."

"We pay rent with our labor," Lina said.

"We're a family. We do what's our due."

Mindy walked to the edge of the woods and stood beside her daughter. They held hands and listened to the roaring creek.

"Tell me about my birth again," Lina said, changing the topic. She sat on a log, just inside the forbidden woods. There was nothing to gain in arguing a point her mother would never understand.

"You know the story," Mindy said, sitting beside her daughter. "I was fourteen, just like you will be tomorrow. You were born right close to the creek, just past midnight. You had your first bath there."

"Was that sanitary?"

Mindy chuckled and brushed the hair back off Lina's shoulder.

"No, it wasn't sanitary. Not much about that night was, but you survived and so did I."

"Who is my father?"

Lina leaned back against a tree trunk as though settling in for a long story.

"I don't know..."

In the silence that followed, Mindy resting her head against the tree and Lina leaning forward to wait, a complete memory flashed through Mindy's mind... one she didn't plan to share with the girl she had raised as her daughter.


Mindy could hardly believe the small child she held in her hands was hers. He was the most perfect and beautiful thing she had ever seen. He had curly dark hair, so perfectly formed, it looked unearthly.

He had a small round nose that looked like her own. She touched it lovingly, and then her own.

"We're the same, Honey, you and I." Mindy stroked his hair and ran her hand across his tender cheek.

She had done everything she was supposed to do. She tied off the cord and cut it where she had been instructed to. She had wiped his little face, took the rubber bulb her sister gave her and sucked the gunk out of his nose. She'd even turned him up and smacked his bottom when he didn't cry.

The baby wriggled a little at first, pumping tiny arms and fists like he was fighting for life, but he slowly grew weaker, and then stopped. He had never opened his tiny eyes... never taken a life-giving breath.

He was too small. Even Mindy knew that. Her sister's baby had been pudgy and red, and was born wide-eyed and screaming. This child... her child, was no larger than an eggplant.

Mindy had no idea when her baby had been due. She hadn't even started her monthly cycle before finding out she was pregnant. There were no days to count, no months to add up, but the fact her small son was premature was obvious. She held his tiny body to her chest and cried. As a boy, she knew he would have gone to her sister to raise, but she would have been able to see him. She had been through so much since her brother-in-law had begun to molest her, but this was the ultimate tragedy.

How could she explain this to her family? Her father would probably be happy, but he would blame her, saying she was incapable of doing anything right.

Her sister would be relieved. Mindy thought Becky probably suspected who the father was. Chuck hadn't touched her since the day her pregnancy had been revealed at the table.

Strangely, Mindy thought, Chuck would be the most disappointed. This child was the boy he had wanted.

"I'll call you, Chance," Mindy said into the child's unhearing ear. "I gave you a chance at life, and chance took you away."

She lay her son on the blanket beside her and sat up. She had a mess to clean, and she wasn't sure what to do with the baby. She guessed she would have to carry him inside and show the others.

A sound a few rows over drew Mindy's attention, drawing her painfully to her feet.

"Who's there?" she asked. Carefully, she brushed aside a few corn stalks.

She heard a low moaning she couldn't tell whether human or animal. Instinctively, she picked up her son and walked toward the sound. There, kneeling on the ground was a young woman, not much older than her.

The girl had long black curly hair that was matted with dirt. Her clothes were torn and bloody. She looked up with eyes as green as a daffodil leaf, her skin a near translucent white.

Tucked in the woman's arms was a wriggling newborn. She held it up for Mindy to see. Her cord was tied with vine, and her plump body unwashed.

"Can I help?" Mindy asked. She didn't know what else to say.

The woman pointed to the stillborn infant in Mindy's arms. "Your child's not moving. Is it alive?"

"No, he was born too small."

The woman paused a moment as though in deep thought.

"Trade yours for mine, then," she said. Her voice was desperate, her face contorted with fear. "Hurry."

The sound of footsteps in the forest behind the creek were audible and commanding.

"Why?" Mindy asked. "Your baby is alive."

"Yes, but she's a forbidden child. If the beasts reach us, they'll kill her."

The woman reached out for Mindy's baby, but Mindy drew him back.

"I... I... can't."

"Please," the woman said. "Let's don't both lose a child tonight. Take my living one and go. Give her a chance."

"Chance, that's my son's name. What's your baby's name?"

"Lina."

"That's pretty."

"Yes, and I want her to keep it. Will you do as I ask?"

"I don't know."

The sound of the footsteps in the woods drew nearer.

The woman grabbed Chance and wrapped him in the shreds of her dress. She handed her daughter to Mindy.

For a moment, neither woman spoke. They looked into each other's suffering eyes. And then the stranger rose to her feet, and stumbled toward the forest without looking back.

Mindy stared at the child in her arms. She was clearly full term, and had a head shrouded in curly black hair, like Chance's. She possessed what might have been a smile on her chubby face.

"Lina," Mindy repeated.

She stood transfixed by the sight of the precious child that had just replaced her own. For a moment, she felt a flutter of regret and sadness at the loss of Chance, but then set the thoughts aside and hugged the living baby to her breast.

An unspoken pact between herself and the mysterious woman from the woods etched into Mindy's young heart. She took the baby to the stream, washed her off, and folded her into the soft cloth her mother had given her.

"A girl!"

Mindy chuckled at the irony. She now had a baby to raise, one that was not the child of her rapist, and one she could keep.

"Good-bye, Chance," she said, and turned back to the cornfield to clean her moonlit mess.



"Mama?"

"I'm sorry Lina. Where were we?"

"My father? You said you don't know who he is. Grandma says she thinks Uncle Chuck is my father."

"Grandma needs to keep her opinions to herself."

"Is he my father?"

"No, Darling, but I suppose he thinks he is."