The Way Home by Dallas Schulze Read Free Book Online

three of them in a manner he thought appropriate.
    Meg slipped the quarters back into her pocket and walked around the quilting frame to sit across from her mother. Sliding on a worn silver thimble, she picked up the needle where she’d left it at the end of a row of quilting the day before.
    “You’ll never guess what happened today, Mama. Tyler McKendrick gave me a ride home,” she continued, too impatient to share her news to wait for a guess.
    “Helen McKendrick’s boy? I’d heard he was home, recovering from crashing that airplane of his. I didn’t think he’d be up to driving.”
    Ruth Davis squinted down at the fabric in the frame, concentrating on sliding the needle in and out along the dimly marked quilting lines.
    “He limps a little, but he looks just fine other than that.” Meg’s tone made it clear that it would take more than a limp to make Tyler McKendrick look anything less than perfect.
    Ruth glanced across the frame, taking in her daughter’s dreamy expression as she used the thimble to rock the needle in and out of the muslin. Worry deepened the lines beside her mouth.
    “The McKendricks live on the Hill,” she said, her words a warning against the dreams she saw in Meg’s eyes.
    “I know.” Meg’s mouth tightened at having the fragile bubble of her dream pricked by the reminder of the gap that existed between the families on the Hill and everyone else. “He just gave me a ride home, that’s all.”
    They quilted in a silence for a few minutes.
    “Don’t tell your stepfather,” Ruth said abruptly.
    “Don’t tell him what?” Meg had been thinking about Ty, wondering if she’d see him again, wondering if he thought she was pretty.
    “Don’t tell him about Tyler McKendrick giving you a ride home.”
    “Why not? There was nothing wrong with it.”
    “Just don’t say anything,” Ruth repeated. If she felt Meg looking at her, she refused to lift her eyes from her quilting. “Do as I say, Margaret.” The use of Meg’s given name was deliberate, emphasizing how serious she was.
    Meg started to demand an explanation and then shrugged. “It’s not likely I’d have said anything anyway,” she muttered, dropping her gaze back down to the quilt.
    The truth was, she said as little as possible to Harlan Davis. She didn’t like him. Though his methods were more subtle, Harlan Davis had managed to complete the process of breaking Ruth’s spirit that had been begun by her first husband. Though he wasn’t as quick to physical violence as her father had been, he didn’t need to lift his hand when he could cut so keenly with his tongue.
    Over the past seven years, Meg had grown to hate the sound of his soft-voiced criticisms, the constant dissatisfaction with everything her mother did, everything she was. She’d watched the last spark of life fade from Ruth’s eyes, the last traces of Ruth wither away, leaving her an old woman at forty-two.
    Meg forced aside the old anger. There was nothing she could do so it was better not to think about it. She’d think of something else instead. Something like Ty McKendrick giving her a ride home in his snappy little roadster.
    As she rocked the needle in and out of the fabric, Meg allowed herself to dream a little, imagining Ty being so entranced by her charm and wit that he invited her out to dinner at some highbrow restaurant — never mind that Regret boasted no such place. From there, it was a short hop to picturing the two of them attending a spectacular premiere in Hollywood together. She’d be wearing a swanky fur coat and dripping diamonds. Ty would look devastatingly handsome in his white tie and tails. Women would be swooning with admiration when they realized that he was the dashing pilot in the film. But he wouldn’t pay any attention to them. His attention would be all for her.
    She sighed quietly, her eyes dreamy, so wrapped up in her small fantasy that she didn’t see her mother looking at her across the quilting frame. Or