The next day I didn’t feel as bad about it. For one thing, it was going to be necessary for someone to go home and pick up our car and the additional clothes we’d need. That someone logically was I, which meant a few days’ respite from the rural life. That it also meant being away from my injured husband, I remembered guiltily a moment later.

Franny decided she wanted to come with me. I didn’t like taking her away from Jack, and, in fact, I was a bit surprised she was so willing to leave him, since she was so fond of him. Duff, on the other hand, declared that he would rather stay and help Stephanie look after his father.

So Franny and I went in the rented car to Cleveland Airport, flew back to New York and completed a good bit of our packing that same night. The next day we visited the real estate office, where I signed the lease with our tenant, a Mr. Harold Shaffer, who was fiftyish, well dressed and had no small children to scratch our furniture or write on our walls.

Then we went to the two schools and made arrangements for the transfer of credits. An assistant principal at Franny’s school said that she thought temporary new surroundings would be good for Franny, whom she described as an imaginative child who could become quickly bored with routine.

And of course the people at Duff’s school only confirmed what I already knew. “There’s very little more he can be taught in a high school classroom, either here or in Cainesville,” said his former physics teacher. “If he has access to good books, Duff will do well no matter where he is.”

He had access to plenty of books without doubt and some of them may have been good in the sense of being factual and informative, but they didn’t serve Duff very well. On the other hand, I suppose it wasn’t the books that caused what happened. They may have explained certain things to Duff, but the impetus to search for knowledge came from somewhere else.

Anyway the next day we loaded the Oldsmobile, took a farewell tour through the house and started back for the farm. Somewhere around Harrisburg on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, Franny told me what happened the night she and Duff drove home from the hospital.

5

Chapter Five

For the past two days Franny had been perky enough, having shed her gloom as soon as we left the farm. However, she didn’t say at any time that she didn’t want to go back there. I’m sure it would have influenced me if she had mentioned anything like that before I signed the rental papers, but she didn’t suggest it even now. She only became more pensive and morose as the miles passed. Finally I asked her what was wrong.