"A low earth sound from nowhere echoed across the farm and Mother stopped next to me in front of the kitchen window, a tea towel swinging limply in her hands. Through the translucent white fake chiffon curtains there were nothing but hazy waiting sky and cows drifting fatly towards the back fence.

     “What was that?” I said, too loudly. We waited a moment in stillness, and then she turned away from the window with her pinch-lipped kitchen face, the towel whipped ruthlessly back into action, damp and limp as an old sock. I remember how the clean towels lay over the oven door handle, red and white checks, hanging there so still and fresh from ironing that even in the minutes before the twister came I thought I could smell them."