"Do you have family in Fairbanks, too?" Beth asked, dipping her fork into a duck leg and shoving it into her mouth.

I paused, debating of whether to share my vignettes of the the old farmhouse- shearing the sheep, milking the cows, listening to Tabitha's bickering that the butter just wasn't sweet enough. I breathed heavily as if I was suffocating, trying a find a reason not telling her. There was no reason not to. Why was I hiding like a shrub on a mountain summit?

"I grew up on a farm, actually." I took a pause just so Beth could interject some random anecdote about some cheese tasting in New York farmland or whatever, but silence was the only thing that followed. Only the chewing of duck stir fry and cacophonous chirping crickets. "My daily life consisted of shearing sheep and milking cows. My dad never let me go to school, he claimed mum could teach just fine. Well, mum never really cared to teach anyway. She loved me, but she was always so busy with farm work. Regardless, my dad insisted I shouldn't go to school. Then my sister Tabitha came along, and boy, she was all he wanted in a child. The looks, intelligence, great with tools. When she came of age, he sent her to school. And when he came back from the school after signing Tabitha, he enrolled me in the high school, probably so he doesn't give off the aura of a favoritist.