The Long Road Home Read Online Free PDF Page B

a shiny nickel-plated cash register with the drawer half open.
    “Hello,” Nora chirped.
    The old woman behind the counter gummed her lips a moment and gave Nora a thorough once-over. “’Lo,” she replied.
    The woman was no one Nora had ever seen before. It appeared no more talk was coming, thank heavens. Nora wasn’t up to questions yet. She cut a swath through the store, grabbing quickly. Coffee, eggs, milk, bread, and she was done.
    “Thank you. Bye.”
    “Yeh-up.”
    If she shopped there daily for the next ten years, Nora doubted she’d ever get more of a response than that. Vermonters weren’t a chatty group.
    At last she made the final turn by the marshy pond. The car veered off the paved road and rumbled along a dirt town road, not fit for tourists. She stretched out her cramped legs and arms and slowed to a crawl. The meadows were on a higher plain than the road and were separated by a low stone fence bordered by pine, maple, and apple trees. She began searching for something—a barn, a tree, a pond—anything familiar.
    She passed the Johnston house, her nearest neighbors. The small cape with pale green asphalt siding appeared to be slipping down. Its sills were sloped, the front porch leaned, and there was chokecherry now where there used to be flowers.
    The house was close to the road but she passed without stopping. She was too near her final destination to stop for hellos. The vista opened up and she smiled seeing Skeleton Tree Pond, acres of fresh spring water so cold Mike swore it could stop the heart. She felt the first prickle of excitement along her neck.
    The bumpy road curved around the lower barn where sheep stood in small clusters. In the field beyond, fifty, maybe more, lazily chewed in the sun. They raised their white faces as she passed, ears pricked. Nora smiled again, feeling an instant bond with the gentle creatures.
    She was on her own land now. Four hundred acres, most of them vertical, all of them green. She was surrounded by green, interspersed now with the oranges, reds, and golds of an early fall. A few yards ahead she spotted the pair of marble monoliths that signaled the foot of her private road. The stones blended in with its surroundings, so only a careful eye could spot the entry. Mike had wanted to build an imposing brick gate, but Nora had persuaded him that, at least in Vermont, nature should prevail.
    She made the turn and slowed to a stop. Her road curved gracefully and disappeared behind a small hill, but Nora wasn’tfooled. She knew that beyond that hill the pastoral road made the grand prix seem like child’s play. It turned and twisted sharply and inclined straight up, making it a hair-raising trip in spots where the gravel gave way to dirt.
    The unanswered question was: How was the road? Did Seth put down the gravel? Did the rain wash out gullies so deep a tire could get caught? Why hadn’t she stopped at the Johnstons’? Even now she could back up and travel back down the road.
    Something inside of her resisted. A new independence told her to handle it herself. She was tired of asking for help. Sooner or later she’d have to deal with this road and sooner came now.
    Gear in first, she let the clutch up and pressed the accelerator. On up she went, past the hill, past berry bushes long since picked clean by the birds, around big rocks that had lost hold and fallen to the road. Leaf-laden branches arched low, brushing the windshield as she passed and giving off an eerie squeak. Then the road began to incline steeply and the gravel bed grew thin. Nora pressed the accelerator a tad, scuttled up twenty yards and then felt the wheels slip.
    Her knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. Her foot pressed the accelerator, yet her car slid backward down the steep dirt road. Pushing the pedal to the floor, she leaned far forward and whispered, “Go, go.”
    The Volvo whined as its wheels dug to dirt, spitting gravel and swinging its rear across the narrow road like a wild