Broken Country

by Clare Leslie Hall

I’d taken solace in books for my entire life. As a child I’d become so absorbed in my favorite stories, the characters sometimes felt more vivid to me than my friends. Even as an adult, I could still lose myself in fictional worlds, feeling the wrench when I was forced to return to real life. And, quite suddenly, I didn’t have the heart or the mental capacity for any of it. I could not listen to the radio. I could not manage a conversation with anyone other than my own family and, even then, only at the most cursory level. But what I could do was work, really hard. It was my father-in-law, David, who put me back to work on the farm, understanding hard physical labor, twelve-hour stretches of it, was a necessary outlet for my grief. I can do everything the men do, milk cows, herd sheep, mend fences, heft hay bales. Me and Frank and Jimmy, the hardest workers you’ll ever come across. When the doorbell rings, I am kneeling on a sill furiously shining a window with newspaper and white vinegar. It is annoying to get down and answer the door but I do it—country people usually do. We