Her Own Heart Within Her

By the time the first visitors showed up, Nancy Luce had cleaned the coop and hung the wash. She’d worked two hours on a poem. She was clipping a rhododendron when the buggy pulled in. Sound of hooves, voices. She stepped out from behind the bush and whistled. Hens rushed toward her, sixteen altogether.

A boy, beside her now: You’re the chicken lady!

Nancy put on a version of a smile. Her scarf felt tight beneath her chin. A hen named Lily was asking to be carried, so Nancy picked her up.

A girl reached out. Can I?

Not yet, Nancy said. What were the parents doing? The man set something on a stump. She wished they’d hurry.

Daily, people came to view her life. They roved the homestead, asked their questions. Eventually she’d herd them into the shed to sell them things she’d made or grown.

She reached into a pocket, fed the family’s horse a carrot. The boy shrank back. Big teeth, he said. The Morgan wouldn’t bite—Nancy knew from his stance. When she was in her teens, she’d brought her family’s goods to the Edgartown market on horseback. That was before she fell sick with neurasthenia and before her parents’ early deaths. She was their only child.

The Morgan nosed her for another carrot. She petted his neck. She had loved to canter.