Charles asked, “Did you love our father?”

“I won’t answer you until I know what you’re getting at.”

“Did you or didn’t you?”

“What’s that got to do with you?”

“Tell me.”

The creative free boldness was all through Adam’s bones and brain. “All right, I’ll tell you. No. I didn’t. Sometimes he scared me. Sometimes—yes, sometimes I admired him, but most of the time I hated him. Now tell me why you want to know.”

Charles was looking down at his hands. “I don’t understand,” he said. “I just can’t get it through my head. He loved you more than anything in the world.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“You don’t have to. He liked everything you brought him. He didn’t like me. He didn’t like anything I gave him. Remember the present I gave him, the pocketknife? I cut and sold a load of wood to get that knife. Well, he didn’t even take it to Washington with him. It’s right in his bureau right now. And you gave him a pup. It didn’t cost you a thing. Well, I’ll show you a picture of that pup. It was at his funeral. A colonel was holding it—it was blind, couldn’t walk. They shot it after the funeral.”

Adam was puzzled at the fierceness of his brother’s tone. “I don’t see,” he said. “I don’t see what you’re getting at.”

“I loved him,” said Charles. And for the first time that Adam could remember, Charles began to cry. He put his head down in his arms and cried.

Adam was about to go to him when a little of the old fear came back. No, he thought, if I touched him he would try to kill me. He went to the open doorway and stood looking out, and he could hear his brother’s sniffling behind him.

It was not a pretty farm near the house—never had been. There was litter about it, an unkemptness, a rundownness, a lack of plan; no flowers, and bits of paper and scraps of wood scattered about on the ground. The house was not pretty either. It was a well-built shanty for shelter and cooking. It was a grim farm and a grim house, unloved and unloving. It was no home, no place to long for or to come back to. Suddenly Adam thought of his stepmother—as unloved as the farm, adequate, clean in her way, but no more wife than the farm was a home.

His brother’s sobbing had stopped. Adam turned. Charles was looking blankly straight ahead. Adam said, “Tell me about Mother.”

“She died. I wrote you.”

“Tell me about her.”

“I told you. She died. It’s so long ago. She wasn’t your mother.”

The smile Adam had once caught on her face flashed up in his mind. Her face was projected in front of him.

Charles’ voice came through the image and exploded it. “Will you tell me one thing—not quick—think before you tell me, and maybe don’t answer unless it’s true, your answer.”