ABSTRACT
At a picnic at my aunt’s farm, the only time the whole family ever gathered, my sister Billie and I chased chickens into the barn. Billie ran right through the open doors and out again, but I stopped, caught by a shadow moving over me. My cousin, Tommy, eight years old as I was, swung in the sunlight with his face as black as his shoes—the rope around his neck pulled up into the sunlit heights of the barn, fascinating, horrible. Wasn’t he running ahead of us? Someone came up behind me. Someone began to scream. My mamma took my head in her hands and turned my eyes away.
