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Even that question wasn’t as simple as it should be

"Lydia," I said after a moment "You can call me Lydia"

"Okay Hi, Lydia"

"Hi" I so feed"

I looked back at the house full of strangers and questions and gravy Then I looked at the wide-open sky and the really cute boy "Want some company?"

The tires of the old, beat-up truck rattled in and out of the deep ruts in the ground Ethan pushed the clutch and shifted gears, and I thought that it wasI’d ever seen He was so confident, so at home and at ease This was his do bale of hay and long line of black, hairy cows trailing behind us They would have followed him to the ends of the earth, I could tell

But Ethan and I stayed quiet in the cab of the truck that, even with the heater blowing at full blast, was still cold I could see my breath I put loves and handed them to me

Finally, the silence must have been too much because he flipped on the radio and, instantly, ht" but there were too ers and the tempo was too fast It made me want to be sick

"Sorry about the station," he said "Emily or the twins must have been in here They love that teenybopper stuff"

He turned off the radio and I pulled on his gloves They were still warm inside "That’s okay"

"Do you like music?" he asked

"I used to When I was a kid"

"And now that you’re so old you’re over it?" he asked with a grin

"Yeah," I said "So have you lived here?" Suddenly, I was desperate to change the conversation

"Well, I’m seventeen now, so … seventeen years"

"Has your faeneration nue--not like Ethan had roots tying him to that place It wasfaether"

"Yeah I guess"

"Why did you go to Iceland?"

I don’t knohere the question caht question--that soain and started over a ridge The ranch spread out before us, white and clean and stretching for miles It was the kind of place most people only see in oing to live here and work here for the rest oftiuess I just wanted one little part of my life to be not here And Iceland seemed about as not here as a place could possibly be"

I looked around at the rolling hills, the distant dots of cattle "Here doesn’t seeain He didn’t face me "What about you? Where is your home? Or is that secret, too?"

"No secret," I told him "I don’t have a home"

"Hey, honey," Aunt Mary said when I finally returned to the house She was kneeling on the living roo while Emily stood on an ottoel "Weyou I--"