“And you would be free,” she said.
I smoothed the rough fabric of the towel with my palm.
The smell of hot starch filled the kitchen, thick and dry.
“I do not want to be free of her,” I said.
My mother did not answer.
She picked up another pillowcase and began to press it, her face set in a quiet, unyielding line.
The gravel driveway crunched under my shoes as I walked toward the road.
The afternoon sun was low, casting long, thin shadows through the maple trees.
Ben stood by the wooden garage doors, holding his black-framed bicycle by the handlebars.
“Are you heading back to the cottage?” I asked, stopping a few feet away.
Ben looked up.
He rubbed the back of his neck, his fingers leaving a faint smudge of dark soil on his collar.
He had been working in the garden behind his cabin.
“Not yet,” Ben said in his quiet, patient voice.
“I promised I would stop by the yellow house first,” he said.
“We could go to the diner,” I said, pointing toward the highway.
“They have the fresh plum pie today,” I added. “We could talk about the school board meeting.”
Ben shook his head slowly.
He did not look at me directly, his gaze fixed on the front tire of his bicycle.
“I told Rosie I would help her with the library books,” he said.
“She wants to finish the chapter on the Great Lakes before tomorrow,” he added.
“She can read that on her own, Ben,” I said.
“She does not need you to sit with her every afternoon,” I said.
“She likes the maps,” Ben said.
“I help her trace the shipping routes with the colored pencils,” he said. “It makes her happy.”
“You have your own chores,” I said.
“My parents pay you to manage the orchard, not to tutor my sister,” I added.
