Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 96178 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96178 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Her parents had known she was applying to university in the same way they’d known when she was building a wind-power system from old scraps from Mr. Mooney: She’d disappeared down the road for a few hours every day, and then the new power source appeared. But at least when she connected the wind-power to the grid, Steve and Gloria had been happy to have electricity all day, every day. When the acceptance letter from Corona College landed in their PO Box, Steve and Gloria stared at it on the dining room table like Ren had dumped the slop bucket there by mistake.
“There’s nothing they can teach you out there that you can’t learn right here,” Steve had said.
Gloria had nodded. “There’s influences out there that’ll poison your thinking.”
“Is this about you wanting more books?” Ren’s father had asked. “We’ll take you to the big library over in Moscow.”
The truth was that none of them had expected her to be accepted—at the age of twenty-two, Ren had never stepped foot in an actual classroom—so she hadn’t properly prepared her argument by the time the thick white envelope landed.
It sat unopened on the small dining table for a day and a half, an uninvited guest in their home. Ren finally made the only argument she had, the one she knew would appeal to their biggest fear: “We need to better prepare for this cycle of drought and flood. Our crop yields are smaller every year, and if I’m going to live here the rest of my life, I need to make sure this land can support me once you’re gone. I need to see what the world outside has learned so I can bring it home.”
Gloria and Steve had exchanged looks.
Steve had asked, “Who’s gonna pay for it?”
“They offered me full tuition and board.”
Ren’s parents sat with it overnight, then, in the morning, laid out the ground rules.
She would live in the dorms Monday through Friday. Every weekend she’d be home, where she’d still be expected to complete her weekly chores. She was not to tell people the location of the homestead or specifics about their way of life, and if she ever felt the modern influences pressing in on her, she’d tell her parents immediately. She was to avoid technology as much as possible and outside of classwork was forbidden from searching the internet. If they sensed any change in her disposition, they’d withdraw their support, and she could either come home or stay away forever.
But when it came down to it, there was no knock-down-drag-out fight, because the truth didn’t need to be said aloud: Her parents couldn’t legally keep her from leaving even if they wanted to.
And now she was right on the cusp of doing just that.
“Too late to be scared now, Rennie,” Gloria said with her trademark blend of exasperation and weariness. It was what Ren had always admired most about her mother; she didn’t waste time sugarcoating anything.
“If you’re going off to school,” Steve said, coming up to unlatch the gate of the pickup, “you’re gonna have to carry your own weight.” It was what Ren had always admired most about her father; he made sure she’d never had to rely on anyone else.
“I’m going to miss you both,” Ren told them earnestly. “I’ll write letters every day so you have something to find in the post office when you go to town on Wednesdays.”
With a quick, deep inhale, she bent at the knees and hefted the heavy wooden trunk into the bed of the pickup. Ren closed the tailgate and latched it shut with the long metal pin before turning to look back at the only place she’d ever called home. The roof of their little cabin was covered in a soft blanket of snow from the previous night, but in the warmer months a fifty-year-old oak tree gave them shade, as well as the best branches to climb. Behind the cabin, the fields stretched on as far as the eye could see. Ren said a silent and temporary goodbye to the animals huddled together there, braving the wind to soak up weak tendrils of the late-January sun.
Gloria broke through her reverie: “What are the rules?”
Ren blinked back to focus on where her mother stood holding the passenger door open. “I can leave the dorms for meals, class, or the library,” she said, and adrenaline pricked beneath her skin just thinking about it.
“No boys, no booze,” Gloria said. “No restaurants.”
“No internet, no makeup,” Steve added from behind the wheel, and Ren coughed out a laugh as she slid to the middle of the bench seat.
“Makeup! Me?”
“You just wait,” Gloria said. She hauled the heavy truck door closed behind her. “College coeds will try to get you to do all kinds of frivolous things. You want to learn, so go learn. Leave the nonsense to everyone else.”