"Jessie, you lazy little brat, get up! Stop playing dead in that wheat. Think you can just lie there and slack off? Not while I'm breathing. You and Emily—pair of freeloaders—don't you dare think you'll eat our grain for free…"
Jessie heard her grandmother's voice long before she opened her eyes. Margaret never could keep her mouth shut.
Heatstroke. That's what it had been. Same as last time. Jessie stayed still a few extra seconds, heart hammering, trying to catch up with the fact that she was breathing again. Reborn. Same field, same blistering afternoon, same old woman's voice scraping at her.
Margaret didn't wait. Those hard hands clamped around Jessie's arms and yanked. Pain flared. Without thinking, Jessie twisted the way she'd learned in the other life—quick, sharp—and Margaret lost her grip and went sprawling backward into the stubble.
That set her off proper.
"You ungrateful little snake!" Margaret screeched, flat on her back. "Everybody look! While her parents are laid up she turns on her own grandmother! She shoved me! Come see this!"
She just lay there carrying on. The other folks cutting wheat nearby stopped and turned.
Jessie had to open her eyes.
Last time around it had been the exact same day. Parents in the county hospital after the accident, her and little Emily dumped on Grandma. Margaret sweet as pie when her son was looking, pure mean the second he wasn't.
Jessie had forced herself back into the field after the heatstroke, scared of making trouble.
That afternoon Emily, trying to start supper alone, burned her face on the stove. The scars never left her.
Not this time.
Jessie pushed herself up slow, making it look harder than it was. "Uncles, aunts—look at me. You really think these arms could knock Grandma over?"
She held them out. Fresh bruises already darkening around both wrists, clear as day from Margaret's grip.
Most of the neighbors knew how Margaret felt about Jessie. Grandpa Harold and Uncle Ray just kept their heads down and kept cutting. Their silence said plenty.
Margaret's mouth opened and closed. Nothing came out.
Jessie gave the watching faces a small nod of thanks and walked out of the field on shaky legs.
Margaret tried to scramble after her, but a couple of the women stepped in and held her back. She had to let it go—for now.
She stared after the girl, frowning. Jessie used to take every slap and never show the marks. What got into her today?
*I'll sort that little brat out once the wheat's in,* Margaret thought, and went back to work scowling.
Jessie walked home grateful and angry at the same time, the old life running through her head like a bad film.
She'd tried so hard last time. Worked herself raw, never talked back, hoping her grandparents might finally soften. They never did. Just took and took.
Her parents had treated Uncle Ray like gold and he'd repaid them by breaking their hearts. In the end Jessie died ugly, and her grandparents had been part of the reason. Others too.
This time none of them walked away clean. The ones who hurt her would pay. The ones who helped would be repaid.
This time she was going to live.
New Hope still looked the same. September 9, 1972. The Carters still lived all under one roof; the place hadn't been divided yet.
Jessie pushed through the gate. The house was the same plain wooden farmhouse—six rooms and a kitchen, nothing fancy. Grandparents in two, her parents' rooms empty for now, Uncle Ray's side in the other two.
Emily was only six and small for it. She stood on a stool by the wood stove, carefully pouring water into the big kettle.
Jessie crossed the kitchen and took the ladle out of her hands. "Em, I'll do that. Go play under the oak a while."
Last time Emily burned her face cooking alone. Jessie wasn't letting that happen again.
Emily shook her head hard. "I don't want to play. I want to help more. Maybe then Grandma will like us better."
Those were Jessie's own words from the old life, coming back at her.
Jessie crouched down. "Em, I take it back. All that stuff I used to say. Working ourselves to the bone never made Grandma like us. People who don't care about you don't start caring just because you do more chores. We don't have to keep trying to please her. We don't have to listen the way we used to."
Emily frowned. "I don't really understand…"
"That's okay. You will later. Go play. I'll call you when the lemonade's ready."
Emily's face lit up. "Lemonade? Real lemonade?"
It had been a long time.
She skipped out the door, bare feet kicking up dust, that pure little-kid smile still on her face.
Jessie's eyes stung. Last time that smile disappeared the day of the burn and never came back. This time she was keeping it.
She knew the good sugar and the last lemons were locked in Grandma's room. That wasn't a problem anymore.
The latch on the back window of Margaret's bedroom had been broken for years. Jessie pushed it open, climbed through with the empty ladle, found the brown crock under the bed, measured out just enough, put everything back exactly how she'd found it, and slipped out again.
The lemonade came together fast. She poured it into a metal lunch pail, set the pail in a basin of cold well water, and waited. A few minutes later it was perfect.
She called Emily in. The two of them drank three glasses between them, gulping it down, the cold sweetness cutting straight through the heat.
It tasted like heaven.
When the last drop was gone, Emily's face clouded. She glanced at the door, voice small.
"Jessie… Grandma says we're not worth the sugar. If she finds out we took some… is she gonna beat us?"