She didn't want to go?
I almost laughed out loud.
My mother had the top scores in her whole school. Going to college in the city was the thing she dreamed about.
How could she ever have just given it up?
I lifted my eyes and looked straight at him.
He rubbed his nose, uneasy, then turned and pulled the door shut hard behind him as he left.
That afternoon he came back on the heavy old bicycle, Edwina riding behind him.
They each carried a woven sack, and not long after they came inside,
the back room filled with the sound of drawers being yanked open and things tossed around.
A moment later Edwina walked out with an armful of things and dumped them on the table.
The enamel basin, the warm thermos, towels, soap, and a pair of cloth shoes I'd just finished sewing the night before.
"This enamel basin's really nice. And I happen to be short a thermos too."
"Penny, all this stuff was for you to take to college, right? Such a shame, you had bad luck and didn't get in. And I happen to need it for school, so Dad won't have to spend money buying me my own."
She chattered on to herself, lifted the cloth shoes for a look, then curled her lip in distaste.
"These shoes are just too tacky. What decade is this? Who still wears these. Throw them out."
She flung them out the door without a second thought, and my heart jumped right along with them.
The letter to the state education board, hidden under the insole, was about to slide loose.
Laurel Lambert, carrying her water buckets, caught the whole armful by sheer chance.
She was about to hand them back to me when I narrowed my eyes and gave her the smallest shake of my head.
Laurel froze, glanced at the strange man standing guard outside our house,
dropped her eyes, tucked the shoes against her chest, and went on her way with her buckets.
"The fabric on these is so good, perfect for my oldest girl to wear out in the fields. No sense wasting it."
Edwina and my father didn't notice a thing.
Once they'd gone through every usable thing in the house, they turned and left.
I lay on the bed and didn't sleep all night.
The next morning, in the first gray light, a fierce argument broke out beyond the door.
I pulled the curtain aside and saw Laurel being dragged back into the yard by my father and Edwina,
and the stone that had been sitting on my chest leapt clean out of my heart.
My father had the opened letter clenched in his hand, his face an iron gray.
"Penelope Fox, I knew you wouldn't stay quiet."
The words were barely out before the two strange men at the door moved.
One pinned my shoulder, the other pulled a coil of rope from his waist,
and in a few quick motions they wrenched my arms behind my back and bound them tight.
The coarse rope cut into my flesh, and the pain made me suck in a sharp breath.
I forced my head up. "Dad, what are you doing?"
He ignored me, crouched to check the knot, gave it two more tugs,
and only when he was sure it was tight did he stand.
"You ask me what I'm doing? Grown your wings, have you, bold enough to write letters and report us?"
"If that letter had gone out, Eddie wouldn't get into college, and you wouldn't have an easy time of it either!"
His eyes were bloodshot as he looked at me,
without a trace of guilt or pity in them, nothing but calculation.
Laurel rushed over with her hair loose, finding the nerve to speak up for me,
only for my father to threaten her daughter's life and scare her off.
As she went out the door, her eyes were still wet with tears.
A sour ache rose in me, but I let out a steady breath.
"Dad, I'll ask you one thing. How exactly did my mother fall from that building back then?"
His pupils froze for an instant. Then his lips curved into a smile.
"She just couldn't get past it on her own. If she'd been a little more generous, not so stubborn, it never would've come to that."
Each word was a knife carving into my chest.
My whole body shook, and even my voice trembled.
"My mother was murdered by you and Edwina's mother, Beatrice Swanson."
