Scott Nicholson by The Farm

Author:The Farm [Farm, The]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-07-03T14:15:01+00:00

Chapter Twenty

Katy’s back ached. She’d ended up sleeping on the couch, un-able to face Gordon, much less lie in the same bed. She’d cooked oatmeal for Jett, men walked to the end of the road and waited for the bus with her. Gordon must have arrived late and headed out early. He hadn’t even made his usual pot of coffee.

After Jett rode away on the bus, sitting at a rear window and refusing to wave, Katy went back up the gravel drive. As she passed the neighbor’s house, she hurried, afraid that Betsy Ward would come out on the porch and try to engage her in conversation. She’d always picked up on a distinct coldness emanating from the woman, as if Katy’s big-city accent were somehow alien and even infectious. Plus the Smiths appeared to have a bit of a bad reputation, and Gordon’s distant and antisocial manner certainly didn’t help. Gordon had warned her that Solom was a little clannish, at least among the families that had owned land here for generations. He assured her attitudes were changing as more outsiders moved in, but she sensed resentment rather than acceptance was the more common response.

No one seemed home at the Wards’, so she continued up the long gravel road to the Smith house. As she mounted the steps, she realized with alarm that she still thought of it as the “Smith house,” even though by legal rights it was half hers. She put away the blankets from the couch, cleaned the bedroom, then found herself in the kitchen. It was only ten o’clock, too early for lunch. Besides, with no one else to cook for, she often resorted to an alfalfa-sprout-and-cheese sandwich or a can of vegetable soup. She was digging for a can opener in one of the drawers when she found a handwritten recipe on a dog-eared index card. She recognized the writing; it was done in the same elegant penmanship of the other recipes shed found tucked in books, on the pantry shelves, or amid stacks of dishes. Rebecca’s recipe for sweet potato pie.

It sounded like a nice treat to draw the family together over the dinner table. She checked off the items she would need. She had cinnamon, nutmeg, brown sugar, and even whipped cream, but she had no evaporated milk. She could call Gordon at his office and ask him to stop by the grocery store, but she wasn’t in the mood to ask a favor, even if the favor was for his benefit too. She would pick it up herself at the general store. That meant she had a four-mile round trip. Might be a nice day to walk, because the weather was clear and fortyish, with the barest whisper of wind. Besides, the house had started to become oppressive. She thought she’d get used to being a housewife again, the way she had been the first two years of Jett’s life. But back then, she’d been busy with an infant. With the

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