Free Mercy Falls by William Kent Krueger

would recover. As soon as he could, Cork moved them on to other topics.
    “Get any great college offers today?” he said to Jenny as he wedged off a piece of the meat loaf with his fork.
    She’d taken her SATs early and had done extremely well, scoring in the ninety-fifth percentile. For several months, she’d been considering the schools to which she would make application, and had narrowed her choices to Northwestern, Stanford, and Columbia, none of which the O’Connors could afford outright. They’d filed a statement of financial need, and knew that much of the final decision of a college would rest on what kind of aid Jenny was offered. She was a straight-A student with a lot of extracurricular activities and honors. Through a state-sponsored program, she’d already taken a number of college-level courses at Aurora Community College and aced every one. On top of it all, she was part Ojibwe. According to her high school counselor, all of these things made her an attractive candidate.
    It was Northwestern that Jenny talked about most.
    “No, but Mom and I talked some more about going to Evanston to check out Northwestern’s campus.”
    “Sounds like a wise idea.” Then he said, “Some more’?”
    Jo said, “We’ve been talking about a short trip to Evanston for a while.”
    Cork paused with his fork halfway to his mouth. “Really?”
    “We told you, Dad. Don’t you remember?”
    “Sure.” Although at the moment, he didn’t. “When?”
    “That’s one of the things we need to discuss,” Jo said.
    Stevie, who was seven, put down his glass of milk. He had a white mustache on his upper lip. “I told Roger Turppa that I had a sister in the twelfth grade and he said I was a liar “cuz school doesn’t go that high.”
    “It might not for Roger Turppa, if he’s anything like his dad,” Cork said.
    “Evanston’s not that far from South Bend,” Annie said.
    Everyone knew Annie wanted to go to Notre Dame. There’d never been any doubt. Although only a sophomore, she was already determined to secure an athletic scholarship in softball, and when Annie set her mind on something it usually came to pass.
    “We’ll talk about Northwestern—and Notre Dame—later,” Jo said. “When your father’s not so tired.”
    After dinner, Jo washed the dishes, Cork dried. He was just hanging up the dish towel when the front doorbell rang.
    “Dad,” Annie called from the living room. “It’s for you.”
    Simon Rutledge stood at the door, his hands folded patiently in front of him, smiling as he watched Cork come from the kitchen.
    “Smells good,” Rutledge said.
    “The kids fixed meat loaf.”
    “The kids?” Rutledge laughed. “Mine can’t even follow a recipe for ice water. Let’s talk outside, okay?”
    Cork stepped onto the porch and closed the door. It was a blue twilight with a few clouds in the west lit with a faint rose glow. The air was cooling rapidly, and by morning, Cork figured, there’d be frost. Gooseberry Lane was empty, but the houses along the street were lit by warm lights from within. During summer, when the evenings seemed to stretch into forever, he loved to sit with Jo in the porch swing and watch Stevie play with the other kids on the block, their laughter a perfect ending to the day. He didn’t have that feeling now.
    “I didn’t get a lot on the rez,” Rutledge said.
    “I figured.”
    “People seem pretty well split in how they think of you.”
    “They always have been.” Cork put his hands on the porch railing and leaned against it lightly. “You know anything about my family, Simon?”
    “Nope. Only know you.”
    “My grandfather was a teacher, opened a school on the reservation in a time when most Ojibwe kids got sent away to government schools. The BIA’s approach was to do its best to rub out the Indian in Indians. My grandfather had friends on the rez and also in politics and he was able to keep a lot of children from being taken from their families. Know why