This is a story about a trailer set on fire and pushed over a hill. About a girl and her sister that grew up in that trailer. About the Holy Ghost and His power to claim victory over a nation. Over a people, over a family, over Stella in particular. Because Mamaw said so. This and this and this is the way her life would turn out. This is about Squires Ridge. Both the trash side and the fine folk side. On the rough side, they were little and soft until they weren’t, a transformation at nine for girls and fourteen for boys. Then the softness of a baby face fell away into flat and hard, perpetually squinting at the noon day sun. This story, told sincerely and with great dignity, features babies rolling around with syrup in their hair and hugging people they didn’t even know when Mamaw told them to. “Tell her you love her, now” Mamaw might say and they’d chatter back, “I love you.” Until one day a lady from school who dropped off some papers was so disgusted she let Mamaw have it on the back porch. “Why, they don’t even know who I am!”