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“Tell me, Miss Harland, how has your reception been from our other departmental students?”

When she did not reply, he said, “You can tell me honestly.”

“Awful.”

“Figured as much. There’s bound to be some resistance to our first female chemistry major. Especially one who’s both pretty
and
smart.” He leaned closer. “But I’ll tell you something about that group, long as you promise to keep it between us. Far as most of them are concerned, there’s a grand old difference between their expectations and their abilities. And none whatsoever between their retention ratio and their lapse factor.”

She had to smile. “You mean they forget as fast as they learn.”

Mobile features folded into an enormous frown. “Now what’s the purpose of all my work to become a scientist, if I’m still going to talk so everybody can understand me?” He examined her for a moment, then said, “Have you met Lowell Fulton?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Pity. I was hoping to get there before him. Lowell’s a special case. He’s from the western part of the state, out past Asheville. Good lad, intelligent, honest, hard-working. He was one of the scholarship winners from last year. Had a friend of his, best friend, actually. One of the finalists for this year’s scholarship.”

“Oh my,” Jodie said.

Dr. Dunlevy nodded. “Took it right hard, hearing how a late entry, and a lady to boot, kept his friend from joining him. The other boy’s gotten himself a job and intends to save enough to come next year, whether or not he gets the scholarship, so I guess he’s made of good stuff and doesn’t give up easily. Bright lad, but between you and me, he’s not in your league. Not by a mile.”

Jodie thought about Lowell and recalled their meeting of the day before. “I had wondered why Mr. Fulton suddenly seemed so angry with me.”

“He’ll get over it. He’d better. This time at college should be spent making friends and allies, not enemies. I aim on telling him that very same thing. Otherwise that kind of mess tends to have a real long tail. It can whip around and become your noose without you ever knowing.”

“You want me to give him another chance,” Jodie said, understanding him perfectly.

“There, you see, I knew you were a smart one the second I laid eyes on you.”

Jodie shook her head doubtfully. “I don’t know that he’ll be interested enough to try—”

“Just give him a little time to get over his disappointment.

Once he recognizes your real capabilities, he should come around.”

Dr. Dunlevy rose to his feet. “I’d rather not have my two brightest students spend their years trying to tear pieces out of each other’s hides.”

She thanked the professor and walked from the class, decidedly lighter in spirit than she had been when she entered. As she searched out her next class, she reflected to herself that perhaps college would not be so bad after all.

The changes, when they came, were so surprising that Bethan might easily have attributed them to Indian summer.

They started with Dylan whistling as he went about his morning chores. That alone was strange enough to draw Bethan from the stove where she was fixing breakfast. Dylan still disliked his chores around the farm, as pigs and cows never interested him as much as machinery. To have him whistle while he worked, especially before his breakfast coffee, left ethan wondering if perhaps he was running a fever.

Then Moira appeared in the kitchen doorway. “Good morning, daughter,” she said as she moved stiffly into the room.

“Mother!” Bethan could scarcely believe her eyes. “What are you doing up?”

“Thought it was time to try and stir these old bones.” Moira held on to a chair for support, her other hand holding the quilted robe about her. She had lost so much weight over the summer that the robe hung on her. She kissed her daughter’s cheek. “How did you sleep last night?”

“Me? Fine.” Bethan rubbed the spot where Moira’s lips had been. Such affection had not often been shown by her mother since the onset of her ailment. “How about you?”

“Better than an old grouch like I’ve been would ever deserve. I feel like I’ve done nothing but fight for sleep all summer. But the air was cool last night, and I rested well.”

“You’re not a grouch,” Bethan said quietly.

Moira, ignoring the comment, peered through the back window. “I see that my ears have not been deceiving me after all.”

“I don’t know what’s gotten into him,” Bethan agreed, watching Dylan break into song as he slopped the hogs.

“I do,” Moira said. “Your brother has fallen for Carol Simmons.”

Bethan stared in open surprise. “The lovely little blond girl who sings in our choir?”

“She’s not so little, and far more woman than girl.” The edges of Moira’s lips lifted a trifle. “He came in and told me last night after you went to bed. It appears that our dear Dylan is well and truly smitten.”

Bethan looked from her mother out to where her brother was dousing himself at the pump, and back again. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Well, I most certainly do.” Moira straightened as much as her joints allowed and turned to face her daughter full on. “I have spent many a night praying about what happened when you spoke with Dylan about your friend Jodie. I will not tell you that I did not have my doubts. But pain has a habit of speaking falsehoods to the mind. And last night as I looked into my son’s excited eyes, I heard from the Lord as clearly as if He had come down and spoken in my ear.”

Moira’s eyes positively glowed as she continued, “You did right, Bethan. Hard as the choice was, and I know for certain it was one that tore at your heart, I am positive that you did what was appropriate and right. And I am very, very proud of you.”

“Oh, Momma,” Bethan whispered.

“I am still praying for my ‘other daughter,’ ” Moira said meaningfully as she moved closer to give Bethan a quick, fierce hug. “I also know that if you don’t tend to the bacon it’s going to sizzle up to nothing.”

Bethan turned back to the stove just as the back door opened. “Man, oh man, does that ever smell good!” Dylan stamped his boots on the rug and shut the door. He walked over, a grin stretching his lean face, and gave Bethan a one-armed hug. “How’s my little sister doing this morning?”

“Fine,” she managed and blinked hard to clear her eyes. “Just fine.”

SIXTEEN

TWO MONTHS AFTER
her arrival in Raleigh, Jodie returned from class to find Netty in the backyard, bent over a metal washboard and flat-bottomed tin tub set up by the pump. A tall pile of wrung-out sheets dripped on a side table. Netty looked up at Jodie’s approach but did not stop feeding sheets through the wringer. “What’s got your face pulled down at the edges?”

“I don’t believe what just happened to me,” Jodie announced ruefully.

Netty humphed once, and it took a moment before Jodie realized she had just seen the woman laugh. “Must be for real, then.

The realest is always the hardest to believe.”

“They’re trying to block me out of the labs. Nobody is willing to be my partner.”

“I’m hearing,” Netty said. “But I sure ain’t understanding. Is this bad news?”

Jodie explained what lab work was and how important it was to her. Netty’s face remained immobile as she listened, her eyes squinted up against the sun and the starchy steam rising from the sheets. One hand fed a continual stream of sheets through the wringer while the other cranked the handle that turned the pair of rollers. Bluish water splashed onto the ground at her feet. When Jodie was finished, Netty remained silent as she fed through the last sheet, then pressed both hands firmly against her back as she slowly straightened. Bright birdlike eyes squinted at Jodie. “Seems to me you’re missing out on the possibilities here.”

“I guess it’s my turn not to understand,” Jodie answered. “Do you want me to help you hang those sheets out?”

“You stay put, missie. Ain’t no good in your getting starch all over them pretty school clothes.”

“What do you mean, possibilities?”

“Ain’t sure exactly. But if nobody’s gonna hang around to share in the work, it means they ain’t gonna share in the glory neither.”

Jodie placed her books on the ground and settled herself down upon them. “I never thought of that.”

“Them teachers didn’t get where they were by being dumb.

If they see you off doing your best and doing it by yourself, why, they’re gonna take note.”

“I don’t know if I can do it all by myself,” Jodie confessed.

Netty lined up clothespins between her lips, whipped the top sheet out with a wet pop, and draped it over the line. She pinned it into place, then said to Jodie, “Appears like you’ve reached another of them places where it’s important to ask the good Lord for help.”

Jodie looked at the ground by her feet, unable to confess that she and the Lord were not on speaking terms.

“There, see, you’ve taken the biggest step already,” said Netty, misunderstanding the bent head. She popped open another sheet, draped and pinned, then went on, “Bowing a proud head is a hard thing to do. Asking for help is never easy. Neither is receiving it when help is offered.”

Jodie pulled up a handful of grass and tossed it into the fitful breeze. With the dawn had come the first winter frost, but now the late afternoon sun felt almost hot. Not comfortable with the conversation, she asked, “How did you come to be here, running a rooming house all by yourself?”

A pair of sheets were hung on the line before Netty spoke again. “I was the runt of the litter, seventh in line and never much to look at. My daddy married me off to a widow-feller when I wasn’t but fifteen years old. Didn’t hardly know the man before I was walking down the aisle.”

“That’s awful,” Jodie said quietly.

The wizened face appeared from between the rapidly growing line of sheets. “Not really. That’s the way it was done back then. Country folks like us didn’t have no hope in quarreling about a decision. When Daddy said we had to do something, well, that was all there was to it.”

“Did you love him at all? Your husband, I mean.”

“In a way, I suppose—mostly. The Lord tells us to love all our fellow men.” Bright eyes glittered at her. “ ’Course, the hardest folks to love are the ones always under foot.” She popped open another sheet. When the pins were out of her mouth, Netty went on, “We moved up here to the city on account of his business. He was in the lumber trade. Soon after that, he up and died on me. Left me with a heap of bills, a business that he’d barely gotten started, and this big old pile of a house. I was scared, and I was lonely, but I can’t say I was all that sorry. I was free for the first time in my life. Got rid of the business soon as I could. That eased the debt burden some. Decided me and the Lord was gonna either make a go of a life on my own, or go down kicking.”

Jodie turned at the sound of laughter from the parlor’s open window. There were a half-dozen women student boarders at Netty’s. All save Jodie were studying to be teachers, but they appeared to be more interested in finding husbands than finishing their schooling. They treated Jodie with the distant courtesy a well-bred lady would show someone from another country. They simply could not understand what Jodie was after, studying chemistry for one thing, and studying as hard as she did for another.

Netty uncurled the last sheet. “You made yourself some friends over there yet?” she wanted to know.

“Not really.” Again there was the lancing pain at the word friend. Bethan’s absence, and even more the rift between them, remained a wound that twisted Jodie’s insides at the most unexpected moments. She said, “Dr. Dunlevy, I suppose, if you can count a professor as a friend. I like him a lot.” She hesitated a moment, then added for reasons she scarcely understood herself, “And there’s this other student; his name is Lowell Fulton. Half the time he seems to hate me, but every once in a while he looks at me or says something—I don’t know, like he’s trying to make amends for his coldness.”

“He an ambitious fellow? Intelligent, maybe?”

“Dr. Dunlevy says Lowell and I are the two best students,” Jodie replied, embarrassed and proud at once. “As for ambitious, I can’t say. He’s certainly a leader among the other students. They all seem to look up to him.”