Free The Way Home by Dallas Schulze Page A

course, it was terrible when my father died.” The words were flat and unemotional, a gesture to convention.
    “You were pretty young,” Ty said.
    “Yes.” Meg ran one finger through the dust that coated the Hoosier cupboard that sat against one wall. “I was ten. He was hit by a car.”
    “Do you miss him?”
    It struck her that Ty was the first person to ask if she missed George Harper. After he was killed, everyone had murmured their sympathies; commented on what a pity it was — what with him so young and all; said how much his family would miss him even though, when he was alive, the same people had called him a lazy, good-for-nothing bum. Meg had wondered what was wrong with her that she felt none of the regret everyone seemed to think she should; that her father’s death had left her with nothing more than a vague feeling of relief. Now, for the first time, someone was asking her how she’d felt rather than telling her. And she didn’t know what to say.
    Tyler watched the play of emotions across her face, wondering what she was thinking, wondering why he’d asked the question in the first place.
    “No.” It was hard to say which of them was more surprised by the flat denial. He could see in Meg’s eyes that it wasn’t what she’d intended to say. “No, I don’t miss him at all.”
    “Maybe that’s tougher than missing him a lot,” he said slowly, trying to imagine what it must be like to have no real regrets about your father’s death.
    “The day he was killed, I’d dropped a pitcher and broken it.” Her voice was unemotional and her eyes looked past him at something he couldn’t see. “When Mama told me he’d been killed, my first thought was that it meant I wouldn’t get a whipping that night. It took awhile for it to settle in that I wouldn’t get a whipping from him ever again.”
    “It must have been hard for you,” iy said, feeling as if the words were hopelessly inadequate but at a loss for anything more profound to say.
    “You get used to most anything,” she said, shrugging one shoulder.
    “But there are some things no one should have to get used to.” He had a sudden memory of the bruises on Meg’s thin arms that day he’d found her crying under the willow tree, and he was surprised by the depth of anger he felt.
    “Maybe. But that’s the way life is, I guess.” She looked around the dusty kitchen and changed the subject determinedly. “This must have been a wonderful room.”
    “I always thought so.” He accepted her lead, knowing there was nothing he could say that could change what her father had done all those years ago. He shook himself, abruptly aware of the melancholy turn the day had taken.
    “Let’s go back outside,” he said briskly. “I know a good place for a picnic and I don’t think it will have changed much.”
    Twenty minutes later he was spreading a blanket over the ground under the branches of an elderly apple tree. There was a small orchard south of the house where a few trees still clung to life, but the apple tree stood to the west, magnificently apart, still beautiful despite the years of neglect.
    Since Ty’s culinary repertoire was limited, lunch was thick slices of bread piled high with meat and accompanied by crisp pickles and wedges of the cherry pie that Mrs. Vanderbilt had baked for him, taking pity on his bachelor condition. They ate in companionable silence, enjoying the warmth of the day and the clear sunlight that filtered through the apple’s branches.
    Ty had never known a woman who was so comfortable with silence. Most of the women he’d met — and a goodly number of the men — became uneasy if more than a few seconds went by without someone talking. But Meg didn’t seem to feel any of that uneasiness. On the other hand, he didn’t think he’d ever known anyone who was quite so easy to talk to.
    “When I was a boy, I thought that being a farmer was the most exciting thing in the world,” he said.
    “You didn’t