Free The Homecoming by Anne Marie Winston

what?”
    â€œYour childhood,” she prompted.
    He shook his head. “You don’t really want to hear about my childhood, Sydney. There’s nothing the least bit normal about it.”
    â€œI do.” There was a quiet, unshakable determination in her tone.
    He set down his fork. Very deliberately, he held her gaze across the table. “All right. My mother was an alcohol-sodden, self-centered bitch who should never have been allowed to breed. My father was a philanderer who found her so distasteful that he pretty much just distanced himself from the household. I was a lousy student. Anything else?”
    Sydney didn’t say a word. She just studied him, forso long that he began to feel ashamed of his curt recital.
    â€œI wonder why he married her,” she said.
    Danny uttered a bark of cynical laughter. “I’ve often asked myself that. I think she must have gotten pregnant, or else told him she was. A trick like that would be something she would do.”
    â€œYou sound as if you’re angry at her.”
    Danny shook his head. “Not angry, exactly. My past is like a bad dream. I do best if I don’t think about it.”
    â€œBut things are better now.” There was certainty in her voice.
    He hesitated, for some reason unwilling to be dishonest with her. “Not better, exactly. But…placid, I guess is a good way to describe life here.”
    The little dimple in her left cheek winked at him. “I refuse to believe you live here surrounded by all this beauty, where it never snows and almost always rains at night, and aren’t happy.”
    He appreciated her attempt to lighten the mood. “I guess I am,” he said. As happy as I’m ever likely to be again.
    â€œYou are,” she said with certainty. “You know, I’ve never been anywhere outside the Pacific Northwest except for family vacations to Yellowstone, Niagara Falls and Disney World, in Florida, and a trip down the California coast, where we saw a whole lot of redwoods and wineries.”
    He had to chuckle. “Sounds memorable.”
    â€œNot when you’re eight and you’re stuck in the car for days on end. I always had to sit in the middle because Stuart and Shel would fight.”
    Again, he was struck by the utterly normal sound of her childhood memories.
    â€œDid you fight with Trent?” she was asking.
    He shook his head. “No.”
    â€œAre you close in age?”
    He shrugged. “Three years, which is enough to make a difference when you’re kids. And we hardly ever went to the same schools. My sisters were so much younger, I barely knew them.”
    â€œHow many sisters do you have?”
    â€œTwo,” he said. “Katie’s six years younger than I am and Ivy’s eight. I was sent away to school when they were still pretty young, so we never really had a chance to grow close.”
    Sydney’s blue eyes were soft and sympathetic. “You were sent away?”
    He nodded. “Yeah. Better educational opportunities, all that jazz.”
    â€œDid you like it?”
    Did he like it? He debated telling her about the ridicule he’d endured from teachers who thought he was an easy mark because he wouldn’t talk back, about the beatings for not making eye contact. About the freezing-cold showers and the weevils in the bread. About sleeping with a broken piece of metal bedrail because that was the only way he could protect himself from the older boys’ abuse. He debated telling her that hedidn’t talk for eighteen months after Trent finally convinced their father, Jack, to get him out of there. “It was hell on earth,” he finally said.
    Sydney’s eyes went wide. Apparently she’d discerned some of the truth from what he hadn’t said. “It must have been,” she said. “And you’d already been through so much.”
    â€œMy parents didn’t know what to do with me,” he