Black Hills

you see the rain wall? There’s a rainbow.”
    She saw the rainbow, he thought, and he saw the black funnel storming its way across the plains.
    He supposed that said something about both of them.
     
     
     
    OUTSIDE LIL’S BEDROOM, Jenna took several bracing breaths. The light under the door told her Lil was still up. She’d half hoped that by the time she’d finished stalling, the light would be off.
    She knocked, opened the door when Lil called out to come in.
    Her daughter sat up in bed, her hair spilling around her shoulders, her face scrubbed for the night, and a thick book in her hands.
    “Studying already?”
    “It’s on wildlife ecology and management. I want to be ready when I start classes. No, I want to be ahead,” Lil admitted. “A freshman has to be really good to have a chance at any serious fieldwork. So I’m going to be really good. I’m already feeling competitive.”
    “Your grandfather was the same. Horseshoes or horse trading, politics or pinochle, he wanted to come in first.” Jenna sat on the side of the bed. So young, she thought, looking at her daughter. Still a baby in so many ways. And yet . . .
    “Did you have a good time tonight?”
    “Sure. I know a lot of people my age think barn dances are hokey, but they’re fun. It’s nice to see everybody. And I like watching you and Dad dance.”
    “The music was good. Gets the feet moving.” She glanced at the open book, saw what looked like some sort of strange algebra. “What in the world is that?”
    “Oh, it’s explaining equations for measuring population density of species. See, this is a formula for finding the merged estimate, that’s the mean of the individual estates. And its variance is the mean of . . .” She stopped, grinned at her mother’s face. “Do you really want to know?”
    “Do you remember me helping you with math after you got through long division.”
    “No.”
    “That would be your answer. Anyway, you didn’t dance much tonight.”
    “We liked listening to the music, and it was so nice out.”
    And whenever you came back in, Jenna thought, you had that dazed and smug look of a girl who’d done some serious kissing.
    Please, God, let that be all.
    “You and Cooper aren’t just friends anymore.”
    Lil sat up a little straighter. “Not just. Mom—”
    “You know we love him. He’s a good young man, and I know you care about each other. I also know that you’re not children anymore, and when you feel more than friendship, things happen. Sex happens,” Jenna corrected, ordering herself to stop being a coward.
    “It hasn’t. Yet.”
    “Good. That’s good, because if it does, I want both of you to be prepared, to be safe.” She reached in her pocket and took out a box of condoms. “To be protected.”
    “Oh.” Lil just stared at them, as dumbfounded as her mother had been by the equations. “Oh. Um.”
    “Some girls consider this the boy’s responsibility. My girl is smart and self-aware, and will always look after herself, rely on herself. I wish you’d wait, I can’t help wishing you’d wait. But if you don’t, I want you to promise me you’ll use protection.”
    “I will. I promise. I want to be with him, Mom. When I am—I mean just with him, I feel all this . . . this,” she said lamely. “In my heart, and in my stomach, in my head. Everything’s fluttering around so I can barely breathe. And when he kisses me, it’s like, Oh, that’s what’s it supposed to be. I want to be with him,” she repeated. “He pulls back because he’s not sure I’m really ready. But I am.”
    “You’ve just made me feel a lot better about him. A lot better knowing he’s not pressuring you.”
    “I think it might be, sort of, the other way around.”
    Jenna managed a weak laugh. “Lil, we’ve talked before, about sex, safety, responsibility, those feelings. And you’ve grown up on a farm. But if there’s anything you’re not sure of, or want to talk about, you know you can talk to me.”
    “Okay. Mom, does Dad know you’re giving me condoms?”
    “Yes. We talked about it. You know you can talk to him, too, but—”
    “Oh, yeah, big but. It’d feel really weird.”
    “On both sides.” Jenna patted Lil’s thigh as she rose. “Don’t stay up too late.”
    “I won’t. Mom? Thanks for loving me.”
    “Never a problem.”

    RELY ON YOURSELF, Lil thought. Her mother was right, as usual, she decided as she packed provisions. A woman had to have a plan, that was the