Honeycut Hollow is the patch of land where my mother grew up. A parched strip in the Texas Hill Country, it sits above the dry riverbank of the Pedernales River. If the land in this region cannot suck up enough water, it has managed to flourish in a more insidious way. Ranch homes are creeping westward from the big city of Austin and an 8-lane highway is slated to obliterate neighboring farms. But here we are, my mother, her husband and me, walking the caliche dust road to the slender, precious creek at the center of the property. My mother kneels to take a sip, a ritual she has performed for 80 years. My stepfather, whose memory is fading, shuffles along. As we pace the land, he becomes the landscape, his hair as wild as the grass, the tangled branches of a fallen tree as conflicted as the synapses of his brittle brain. A hard-shelled armadillo scuttles by. Prehistoric looking, it roots blindly in the crispy underbrush for grubs, then rounds the corner of the house, ambling into the future out of sight. Everything is certain and uncertain all at once. My parents, this land, all of us.