The real estate agent in Iowa didn’t farm, her husband didn’t, and she was only passingly knowledgeable. She’d had the place listed for three months. The owners were growing soybeans on the land, a roly-poly tract cut from trees. Kind of a rolling part of the state in general. No irrigation, she told Amy, but a stream cut through the middle—a creek, she said, pronouncing it crick, like in the neck—and a four-acre pond stocked with fish. Trout, she thought. A tornado took the old house, a farmhouse from the ’20s. They rebuilt with a fully finished basement. Great for living, a family, and great for waiting out storms. Survival. That’s a risk in Iowa, she said. The sky will open and whisk you right away. Made Paul think of Dorothy, Oz. He looked at Amy and mouthed, begged, for her to get off the phone.
“Oh, honey,” she told the agent. “We’re in Texas. Tornado Alley. If it’s done it, we’ve seen it.”
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