About this story
Through the fence you meet Ruth Rudd, whose neat little garden is the opposite of everything inside your family's walls, and her plain challenge — that neglect is a duty nobody has claimed — sends you back to lay the table and clear a room. It earns one evening's approval, and no answer for where your brothers go once night falls.
How it opens
For eleven years Aunt Bertha's orderly home had made your childhood feel chosen.
Aunt Bertha GrahamWhatever useful work you find, Flora, let it enlarge another life.
Illness entered before your plans had acquired either a name or practical means.
Aunt Sarah MartinYour aunt left her property to me, and I will decide its burdens.
Aunt Bertha GrahamPromise only that the child will have a fair beginning.
Choose
Aunt Bertha needs an answer she can hear.
I can earn my future if I am allowed to remain here.