The day my brother got assigned a job in the city, he did something he'd never done before: he bought me, his little simpleton of a sister, a whole big bag of candy. Three hundred dollars' worth, easy.
The candy hadn't even finished melting in my mouth when my brother told me:
"Only one a day. When they're all gone, Vera Abbott and I will come back for you."
I spat the candy out, frightened, and asked him why he wasn't taking me along.
His brow knotted tight. The plant had only approved one family-relocation slot.
Vera was an orphan, he said. He couldn't let her be abandoned all over again.
My brother rested his hand on my head and made me a promise:
"One year. In one year I'll bring you to the city and get you treated, I swear."
After they left, the whole village said my brother had taken Vera off to live the good life in the city, that he'd long since washed his hands of his idiot sister.
I didn't believe it. I squatted at the edge of the village every single day, waiting.
The village bachelors egged each other on, saying that if I'd just marry one of them, my brother would come back for the wedding.
I refused, so they beat me.
I went home with my face swollen and bruised, crying, and the pain was so bad I couldn't help eating a few extra pieces of candy.
I only wanted my brother to hurry and come get me, so I could tell on them to him.
Until Daisy Quinn noticed my belly was slowly swelling.
She read my pulse, then looked at me, her face grave. "Thelma, you're pregnant... Whose baby is it?"
My head ached so badly I couldn't get out a single word for the longest time.
Daisy held me and cried for a long while. Word reached my brother, but all that came back was a single letter: "Whoever in the village will claim her, marry Thelma off to him."
But by then the whole village had already scorned and berated me, and I couldn't survive the torment. I died in childbirth.
——
When I opened my eyes again, I was just like always, going to the edge of the village every day to wait for my brother and Vera.
The only difference was that the bachelors never came to bother me anymore. They didn't even spare me a glance.
It was only when they gathered together to smoke that I'd catch their broken bits of laughter, as if they were talking about me.
I crept closer to listen.
"Thelma's a simpleton, sure, but there aren't many girls in this village as fresh and pretty as her."
"Lucky thing her head's not right. Otherwise her brother would've taken her to the city long ago."
"Yeah. Lucky her brother wasn't around, and lucky she ended up dying in Gerard's house."
"Otherwise we'd never have been able to explain ourselves."
They jabbered on and on, and I couldn't make sense of most of it.
But one thing I did understand.
They were saying my brother thought I was too stupid, and that was why he wouldn't take me with him.
I puffed out my cheeks and shouted at them, furious, trying to set them straight:
"My brother said he never once thought I was stupid!"
"Just you wait! When my brother comes back I'm going to tell on you, every one of you, for bullying me, and he'll make you pay for it!"
That evening, on my way home, I passed the barren hills.
I saw Daisy busying herself with my candy jar.
She was setting the candy left in the jar, one piece at a time, on the little mound of earth beside my parents' graves.
She'd planted a wooden marker there too, with my name written on it in neat, careful strokes: Thelma Matthews.
I squatted beside her, grinning.
"Daisy really is the smartest. She's pretty, and she writes so nicely too."
"And she knew to write my name, so nobody can come steal my candy, right?"
Daisy didn't answer me. She turned and slowly poured a handful of grayish-white earth into the emptied candy jar.
She was entrusting it to a fellow villager headed into the city on business, telling him to get the jar to my brother no matter what.
My eyes went round as saucers.
"You're going to find my brother! Can you take me this time?"
Daisy still didn't answer.
But at least she didn't stop me.
"Heh heh, Daisy, if you're not saying no, I'll just take it as a yes!"
I was overjoyed, scampering along behind the village man. At last I could go to the city and find my brother.
He pressed the jar into my brother's hands, murmured his condolences, and hurried away.
