After seven straight days of running to the post office with nothing to show for it, my father pulled me into the kitchen and let out a sigh.
"Stop waiting for it. Your acceptance letter went to Eddie."
"She's got no mother, no father. If she gets to go to college, she won't be stuck in this village suffering her whole life. You're different. You're tough, you can stand hard work. You can go work the factory line and still make something of yourself."
I stood in front of the stove, and it was like someone had doused me with well water in the dead of winter. The cold sank all the way through me.
His face darkened, and he started in on me.
"Penelope Fox, Eddie grew up with you. I've thought of her as my own daughter for years. I've already worked it out. Whatever you earn on that line goes toward Eddie's tuition. She's a good girl, loyal. She'll pay you back well someday."
It felt like a coal had been dragged across my chest. But when I looked at him again, I was strangely calm.
"You're right. Since she's your daughter, then from now on, I'm not."
……
He froze, then his face went red.
"Penelope, what kind of garbage is that? She's just using your spot to go to college. Do you have to blow it up into some great injustice? We're family. You don't see Eddie acting heartless like you."
I didn't answer him. I turned and lifted the lid off the pot, where the pig slop was still cooking.
He strode over and grabbed my arm.
"Let me tell you, you'll accept this whether you like it or not. Eddie's coming tomorrow, and you'll stay home. You don't come out!"
I slowly pried his fingers off and said, easily, "Fine."
Pretending I hadn't caught that he meant to lock me in.
He hadn't expected me to agree so readily. He paused, and then it made him wary.
"You really agree?"
I scooped a ladle of water into the slop, which had gone a little dry, and said evenly, "Isn't she off to college? I bought a backpack in town a couple of days ago. Might as well give it to her, no sense letting it go to waste."
He stared at me for a long while, and seemed to decide this meek act of mine wasn't put on. The corner of his mouth eased. He clapped me on the shoulder.
"That's more like it. You've always been the sensible one. Your dad knows that."
But that same afternoon, he took my household register and my ID.
"Eddie needs them for her enrollment paperwork. Don't lose them."
He didn't look at me when he said it. He tucked both into the inner pocket of his shirt and patted it.
I said nothing.
He stood in the doorway a moment longer, like he wanted to say something, then turned and left after all.
The door shut.
I heard the lock catch outside.
Then his voice, lowered. "Keep a close watch. This girl's got a mind of her own. If she tries to sneak out, you come tell me right away."
Two unfamiliar shadows passed across the window.
Not villagers. Men he'd brought in from somewhere.
I stood by the window watching for a moment, then turned and walked to the old camphor-wood chest in the corner.
It had been my mother's.
The lock had broken long ago. I worked it open with a fingernail.
On top were a few patched old clothes. I lifted them away one by one, and underneath was a stack of yellowed envelopes.
Ten letters in all.
From the time I was eight until I came of age, my mother had left me one every year.
In her day, my mother was the first person in the village to finish high school.
Top scores in the whole school, and still she failed to get into college.
It was Eddie's mother instead, an average student,
Beatrice Swanson, who threw a three-day-and-three-night celebration in the village to mark getting in.
Everyone said my mother jumped because she couldn't bear failing the exam.
Only I knew better.
The day she died, she'd made me my favorite pot of soup.
She loved me down to the bone. There was no way she'd have hardened her heart and left me here alone.
