In the spring, Elaine was silent for a moment.
“This must have hurt to see changed,” he said.
It was such a simple and decent thing to say that I had to look the other way.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “He did.
The grass turned thick where the lake had been. Not all at once. The earth heals slowly and unevenly, like people. The first year, the weeds arrived stronger, the algae and ragweed and the volunteer pastures stubborn. Curtis told me to be patient. Harold suggested a mixture of seeds that would stabilize the soil and support the spring channel. Caleb helped me spread it on a cold morning in October, both walking back and forth with transmission diffusers tied to our breasts like two men sowing the aftermath of a war that neither of us would have chosen.
In the second spring, the clover appeared. Then, fesculate. Then, young shots of hardwood along the edge where the machinery had crushed young trees. Spring cleared. The stream was cold again. The deer crossed the bottom grass again at nightfall. One night I saw a fox jogging along the restored shore with something small in his mouth, the earth already forgetting the shape of the evil done.
