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  Part of her thought that if she had any brain at all, she’d tell him about her and Eddie right now. But she didn’t do that. Instead, she smiled. “Okay, so show me and tell me everything. If you leave anything out, I’m going to start quoting poetry.”

  She saw the tension leave his body. He grabbed her about the waist, lifted her up and twirled her about. “You’re still my girl!” he said. “You always have been and always will be. Come on!” He put her down, then grabbed her hand and began to pull her through waist-high weeds toward a dilapidated old house that was a quarter of a mile from the garages.

  It was a two-story farmhouse, tall and big and in need of major repairs. He pulled her up on the porch as she picked briars off her shirt. “Watch that board,” he said when she stepped to the side of the door.

  He didn’t need a key as the door was swollen shut, but he knew how to open it by pulling up on the doorknob, then shoving hard. He had to hit the door with his shoulder three times before it opened, and when it did the doorknob stayed in his hand. “Have to fix that,” he mumbled as he went in ahead of her. She heard some rustling of feathers—birds living in the house—then he came back and held out his hand to her.

  Inside, the house was dirty and some kids had spray-painted their names on the walls. Faith recognized the names of kids they’d gone to school with. She nodded toward one. “I could believe he’d spend his spare time vandalizing an old house.”

  Ty ducked his head when she saw his name painted on a wall. Grinning, he led her through the house.

  Faith looked at the house as an adult, thinking about how one could live here. It had large rooms with high ceilings and she thought that cool breezes would flow through it. There were beautiful ceiling moldings and, on one wall, under the paint, was what looked to be a splendid fireplace. In its day, it must have been grand.

  He led her upstairs to see four bedrooms and a bathroom. “It could be remodeled up here to have more bathrooms,” he said, holding her hand and leading her from one dirty room to another. Layers of wallpaper were peeling off the walls and she could see the different patterns going back from the 1950s to, probably, before the Civil War.

  “You aren’t thinking of living here,” she said. “If that highway is built it would be horrible.”

  “No,” he said slowly. “Not here.”

  She waited for him to say more, but he didn’t. He led her to the window of the master bedroom and showed her where the new highway was to go. It was only a few feet outside the house.

  She thought about what he’d said. Not here, he’d said. “You’re thinking about moving this house to another location, aren’t you?”

  Ty gave his shrug that she knew meant he didn’t want to tell something for fear of being ridiculed. His pride again. “You like the house?”

  Faith drew in a breath. Again, she knew that he was planning for a life with her. This house could be hers, and she knew that Ty had the knowledge and experience to remodel it. “Yes, I like it,” she said honestly.

  He started to take her in his arms then, but she pulled back. “Ty, I think there’s something I should tell you.”

  He dropped his arms and took a few steps away. “You mean that you’re planning to marry Eddie?”

  “How do you—?” she began, then took a breath. “You’ve talked to him, haven’t you?”

  “No,” Ty said. “I haven’t talked to him any more than I’ve talked to you over the last four years. You two went off to college and dropped me, remember?”

  “It wasn’t like that,” Faith said, but she could feel her face turning red.

  “Yeah, it was just like that and I don’t blame you a bit. You two needed to get away from here, get away from Eddie’s mother. And you needed to get away from your mother.”

  Faith felt her spine stiffen. “It’s not like you didn’t have some relatives that you needed to get away from.”

  “Nah,” he said. “They never had any control over me. I always saw what they were, what we were, that is. I know how the town looked at us. I was always separate from them, but you and Eddie…” He trailed off and shook his head as though in disbelief. “You two were controlled. You two were ruled by your mothers.”

  “I was not! The last two years of high school I was everything my mother didn’t want me to be. Remember how I ran around with you all the time?” As soon as she said it, she wished she hadn’t. It sounded as though Ty were the lowest of the low and she’d degraded herself by dating him. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  Ty grinned. “I know you didn’t. Your mother tried to make you into a snob, but she couldn’t. Although Eddie almost made you into a nun. When I first saw you yesterday, I thought I might as well set a torch to this house. I thought he’d overcome you and beaten you down into a replica of his mother.”

  “He did no such thing!” Faith said, but she couldn’t help smiling. “So what made you think he didn’t succeed?”

  “When you first got back, you didn’t see me, but I saw you. You were with Eddie and your mother, and so prim and proper that I hardly recognized you. At first I thought maybe you’d cut your hair, but then I saw you’d just tied it back. Anyway, you were standing outside with them and I told myself to go home, that you were a lost cause. But then a little yellow convertible drove by and I thought you were going to melt right there on the street. It was only for a second, but I saw the lust in your eyes.”

  “Hardly lust,” she said as she remembered seeing the car. A girl was driving it. She was wearing a sleeveless blouse and her hair was flowing out behind her. Faith had been wearing what felt like twenty pounds of clothes and sweat was running down her back and under her bra. When she saw the girl in the car she’d envied her so much she’d wanted to run after her and jump in the passenger seat.

  “Okay, so it was lust,” she said, smiling again. “It was hot and the girl looked cool. But really, Ty, I do have an unspoken arrangement with Eddie. He and I have talked about marriage for two years now.”

  “But he ain’t told Mommy yet, has he?”

  “No,” Faith said, “but you know what she’s like.”

  “She’s a bully and people have to stand up to her. Eddie and you could never make her back down.”

  “But I guess you could.”

  “I can and I have,” he said matter-of-factly.

  Faith turned away for a moment but she knew what he was talking about. Yes, Ty had stood up to Mrs. Wellman many times when they were growing up. Eddie and Faith were scared of her, but Ty never was. She remembered one time when he’d stood in her kitchen and looked her in the eye while she told him what he’d heard so many times before: that he was nothing and would never be anything. Ty calmly said how it was easier to put a camel through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven. Mrs. Wellman grabbed a broom and chased Ty out of the house. Later, Eddie and Faith had sat by the lake with him and marveled at his audacity. Ty said, “What’s a broom? It’s when a person runs after you with a knife that you have to worry.” Eddie and Faith had looked at each other with wide eyes, but they’d asked no questions. Besides, they knew that Ty wouldn’t answer them.

  “Okay, so I’m caught on every count,” Faith said. “I’m terrified of Eddie’s mother, only slightly less afraid of my own mother, and I like to ride in convertibles. What other onerous character flaws do I have?”

  “Onerous, heh?” Ty said.

  “It means—”

  “I know what the word means,” he said. “Or I can guess. You know, Faith, you don’t have to have a college education to be worth something in the world.”

  “Of course not,” she said quickly, but she could feel her face again turning red.

  “Quit looking like you have pity for me,” he said as he started downstairs. “Ready to go to the lake?”

  “Actually, I’ve been gone for quite a while already, and I didn’t leave a note for my mother, so maybe I should go home.”

  “Okay,” he said quickly. “Whatever