Howard had returned home to the farm to find Pa missing. He couldn't find him anywhere. He wasn't out in the fields, not near the river, and certainly not the house. Anywhere he had ever been was completely deserted; not even an echo of his sweat remained. Howie only checked the empty cabins as a last resort. He hated the things.

Inside, he found Pa with the shotgun, collapsed in the corner. Only, his face wasn't shattered into a million pieces. No gore covering the wall. Instead, his giant frame was sitting in the corner by the old fireplace, his throat slit. When Jean later saw him, his face was a pale white, and his work shirt was stained a deep dark crimson. Howie didn't tell his sisters the other things he observed. His blood pooled in the corner, leaving a dark smudge in the room, which trailed out of the house when he picked him up. He had just started to smell. The worst part was; the shotgun was broken. He desperately slashed his own throat with his bowie knife.

Suicide was a crime in the Catholic Church. Pa knew that. What had he done? What was so unforgiving that he would damn himself?

They couldn't grieve for him in public. No one was to know. Mother brought the whole family together that night, sat them in the den and uttered the most unforgivable part of it all. What he had done, no matter how heartbreaking it was, was shameful. If anyone asked, he was sick. Deathly sick. Eventually in time, they would be allowed to say he passed after his bout of illness. They could only ever say this after she allowed them to. Never before. No slips.

After that conversation, they sat in silence in their rooms for hours. No one spoke, no one went to another room. Eventually, and almost simultaneously, they all burst into tears. They cried until they couldn't no more, their mouths dry from exhaustion, and finally fell asleep.

When they awoke the next morning, Jean almost forgotten it had happened. She rose with the sun as usual, got dressed in her usual sheath shirt and pants, and then went outside to work. Her brother was out there too, silently sharpening tools. He was staring out into the distance as if she wasn't there. His face was shaved.

She went ahead into the Indigo fields, using her knife to separate twigs into her basket. She always had a rhythm to get through these things An inner conversation to entertain herself, about anything from the leaves themselves to whatever food she wanted for dinner that night. Today, her head was empty. Jean had no thoughts. She couldn't stop staring into her hands. The movement of the knife slicing into the bush, over and over again, mesmerized her. The knife was shiny, fresh.

Her father had given it to her on her tenth birthday.

Jean stopped cutting branches and screamed. She couldn't stop screaming. Her knife was flung into the ground, scattered somewhere under the indigo's bushes. Her father was dead. He was gone. He cut himself. Jean couldn't get away from it.

Howie had heard her scream, but he couldn't get up from his post. He couldn't stop working. Mary heard it second, and came running out from the house. She was barely out of bed, her hair was still not even brushed, but she ran all the way to her sister. Her long strides took her to the indigo and from there she burst into tears at the sight. Jean was huddled against the dirt facedown, weeping.

"Jean." Mary said, bending onto the ground, slowly. "Please, don't do this." Her lip was trembling. "You can't let Mama see you like this. Not right now."

The younger girl whipped her head like a snake. "How dare you..." She said, the words shuddering out her mouth with venom.

Mary sighed, her tears falling back into her eyes. "Please." She bent down to wipe Jean's face. Jean wanted to bite her wrist. "Mother can't handle it. She has things to do right now, she can't be sad. We can't be sad." She shuddered. "We will lose ourselves."

"What are we supposed to do? This doesn't make sense, Mary!" Jean crawled up onto her knees, reaching for her hidden knife. Finding its hilt, she whipped it out on her sister. Mary gave her a look of distain. "Father took his knife and slit his fucking throat, Mary." She said, deadpan. Her tears were suddenly gone, replaced with heated disgust. "Mary...we need him. He knew that," Jean paused. She reached her conclusion and realized something."Why would he have done unless he just didn't care about us?"

Stolen story; please report.

Her sister stood up quietly. There was dirt caked into her knees. "I don't know. We don't know."

Jean told her sister to leave her alone, and she did. Jean didn't cry anymore, and went back her indigo. It almost felt better. She worked there all day, boring into the work. She didn't stop for lunch, or a smoke, like she usually did. She stayed in the fields, mowing down plant by plant without much effort at all. Eventually he sun began to burn her shoulders. They blistered. Still, she didn't stop until nightfall, and even then she went immediately back to bed.

No one spoke to her, and she almost preferred it.

Unfortunately, Mr. Monty and his family showed in the morning the next day, uninvited. Neve saw them pull up their road from the window. They had a green Roadster, she said. It was beautiful. Ola exited the car first, adjusted her long-waisted blue dress and stockings, and then led out her son. His hair was parted completely straight down the middle and gelled down so flat to his head that he looked almost bald. Mr. Monty came out last. He was wearing sunglasses and a grey suit. A matching handkerchief and tie, a silver watch. Neve remembered it all, and exclaimed it loudly just as they entered the house. No one was even closed to prepared for company, and they still walked right in. Some might consider this rude.

"Oh Flora!" Ola shouted up the stairs, eyeing the floor and carpet.

"Florence." Monty added, piping over his wife's mistake. He looked exasperated.

"Oh yes, oops." She fixed her mistake, shouting into the home once more.

Mother had been up in her room. She had not come downstairs that day, and wasn't dressed and manicured as usual. She had realized her strawberry blonde hair was beginning to grey the night prior. She didn't respond. Noticing the car parked in the front, Jean ran from the fields. By the time she had made it, her face was drenched in sweat. You could see her chest through her shirt.

"Hello! Mr. Monty, nice to see you sir." She said, still panting from the run. "My mother's a bit preoccupied right now."

A vague excuse, sure, but it could work.

"That's fine. Leave Flo to her own devices for a while, I'd say." He grinned, his mustache curling up at the ends. Ola rolled her eyes. "That father of yours, where's he?"

Jean had obviously paled because Mr. Monty did too. Jean knew he had seen Howie covered completely in their father's blood. What could she possibly say? The girl was incredibly lucky she wasn't alone with them for a second longer.

"Hey y'all." Mary wandering in, hazily. "Daddy's actually out of town for the moment. He said something had happened with one of the men that distribute the indigo. I'm afraid he won't be home for a while."

Different excuse than what Mama said, but it would have to do. Still, it felt wrong to make a lie so obvious. Once Mary finished her lie, the man dropped his smile.

"I see." He said, very serious. Jean watched his eyes for a moment. It was obvious he had come to his own conclusion about what had happened. She just didn't know if he was correct or not. He looked pensive, but maybe he was just sad. "Well, I was just looking forward to seeing an old friend."

There was a shouting from the top of the stairs. Mother. Finally. "Monty!" She said, closing her robe over her nightgown. Her hair was frizzy. Jean had never seen her this undone, especially in company. "What are you doing here so early in the morning?"

"Oh my darling Flo...surely you've noticed that it's around 2 o'clock?"

Ma chucked, throwing her head back. "I am merely joking, you buffoon." She said, walking herself down the stairs to meet them. Jean cringed at the insincerity of it all.

Ola intercut her husband, suddenly bored of not being spoken to. "You know, Flo. When Monty said that you lived in a plantation and grew indigo, I really expected something ruinous." She said, taking Jean's mother's hands into her own. They looked like two completely different species of women. Ola was thin and long, like a dagger. Mother looked soft. "This isn't as terrible as I expected!" She laughed.

Mother laughed too. It was fake, again. It was cut short by Monty asking for confirmation Mary's excuse. Her eyes flashed with red, but only for a moment. "Yes! He actually said he wouldn't be back for a month at the least." Quick improvisation for someone so unprepared. This was she was good at, lying.

"Well then," Monty scoffed. "Looks like my family and I will just stay the month! I've been meaning to visit for, what?" He thought for a moment. "16 years now!"

"I don't think that's for the best!" Mary interjected. "Surely, you're more used to a more extravagant lifestyle."

Mr. Monty stretched his mouth out into a thin, unkind, smile. "You'd be surprised, Mary."

Ola was about to cut in again, when Mother agreed. Ola hushed herself. Jean swore that she was going to argue with her husband on staying. She looked way too panicked. No woman that dressed the way she did would ever want to live here for a night at most. Jean had seen it before, the type of people that didn't know the land. They hadn't memorized the stars or the names of flowers. They always were strange people. Her son wasn't even involved in the conversation before him, and she could tell he was that way too. Monty, however, she just couldn't tell.

"You may live in the cabins, if that's what you really want. Just let Howie clean them up for you first. That is my only condition."

"Perfect." Monty smiled, and with that, Jean knew instantly that everything was only going to get worse.