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say, feigning ignorance, buying time. I’m not sure I’m okay with any of it, but that doesn’t really matter. What would change if I complained?
    “Well, it’s short for Coriander,” says The Girlfriend. “My parents are herbalists.”
    Dad clears his throat, “So, Willow, I didn’t think this whole thing would happen so soon after Liz getting here. She’s barely had time to unpack.”
    “Well,” she says, the intensity of her dazzling smile impossibly ramping up a notch, “we’d better catch her up. Cory will be on tomorrow afternoon’s train out of Eugene. How’s the hand, Liz?”
    I tuck a section of bristly hair back into a bobby pin with my bandaged and gloved hand. I can’t help it; I have this tendency to imitate gestures of people who intimidate me. Dr. Greta actually said that was healthy—it meant I was thinking outside of myself. “Okay,” I mumble.
    Since The Girlfriend’s appearance at the shed, a dozen goats lumbered up to the fence, and now a bunch of dark, wet muzzles are pushing me and Dad out of the way, vying to be closest to their mistress, the real star of the show. All creatures great and small apparently love her. Definitely a Betty.
    “My baby brother is just back from two years abroad,” she says, patting all the floppy-eared heads in turn. “His friends down in Eugene, let’s just say they’re not the most positive influence.”
    Dad slips into nervous chuckles. One of his least attractive qualities. “Well, sweetie,” he stammers, “he didn’t have any help drinking the pint of bourbon that got him the minor in possession. What’s the status on his probation?”
    “My parents,” she continues, “they’re getting older. After five kids, they’re really over it. You know? I think Coriander would really benefit from some good old farm work.”
    I try to picture the parents. What sorts of people name their boy Coriander? I conjure a crone of a woman with a long gray braid, her sagging flesh draped in a hemp muumuu. The dad, I’m sure, is one of those balding ponytail types with a potbelly and bulbous nose. Typical Eugene. Pranksters, stoners, yurt-dwellers. Maybe they have a microbus.
    “Where is he going to sleep?” Dad asks.
    “We’ll figure it out, Billy,” says The Girlfriend, slightly annoyed all of a sudden.
    Billy ? My father has always gone by William. But with her being Willow , I can see the problem there. It makes me curious. I wonder about The Girlfriend’s other siblings. So far I know there’s a sister who just had a baby and a brother named Cory who has a drinking problem. “So, Willow, you have four siblings,” I say, trying for the first time to speak her name out loud.
    “My parents weren’t Catholic or anything. Just careless.”
    Her parents, I figure, might be like these very goats. Breeding, producing unchecked. I nod.
    “Cory will be seventeen next month,” she says.
    I envision a boy version of The Girlfriend. The pale, freckled Ivory Girl look wouldn’t lend itself well to a boy.
    “I guess I can go clean out the granary. We can pick up a mattress at Goodwill,” Dad says, continuing the “where will he sleep?” conversation.
    Dad’s girlfriend pouts. Her lips are pale and thin, and turned down they make her much less pretty. This is the opposite of Mom, who’s at her most gorgeous pissed off. “It’s summer,” she says. “The sleeping porch upstairs will do for now.”
    “Right,” Dad says and then hustles his splashing pail of milk to the shed. Over his shoulder he calls, “Princess, can you help me with something?”
    This is code for I need some time alone with you , and I smile. Our secret language, our kinship, is intact and strong as ever. I peel off my gloves and shove them in the pockets of my jeans, then follow my father, leaving The Girlfriend to tend to her goats.

Chapter Eight

    I could barely compose myself when I saw Papa swaggering out the door to meet our carriage, a stein of ale in his hand, a huge