Educated

Mother fiddled with a pen and paper for several minutes, but she wasn’t able to solve any of the first five equations. The next ...

Dad was in the living room, shuffling through blueprints for the granaries and mumbling to himself. I’d watched him sketch those ...

Tyler had lived with her during his first year at BYU, but that was all I knew of her. Tyler answered the door. We settled in th ...

general consensus is that Shawn was standing near the brink, and for no reason at all stepped backward and lost his footing. He ...

condition. They said it was a miracle he hadn’t died the moment his head hit the ground. I struggle to imagine the scene while t ...

sooner. I’d been afraid of how I would feel, afraid that if he died, I might be glad. I’m sure the doctors wanted to keep him in ...

devastating thing, that left Mother in tears more nights than not. These rages changed, and worsened, as his physical strength i ...

15 No More a Child There was a moment that winter. I was kneeling on the carpet, listening to Dad testify of Mother’s calling as ...

slackened, as if he were listening to seraphic voices. “I’ve been praying,” he said. His voice was soft, a loving voice. “I’ve b ...

the angle iron, and it was now stacked—four hundred thousand pounds of it —in tangled mountains all over the yard. I woke up eve ...

heard it, who couldn’t divert her attention from the rustle of turning pages and the scratch of pencils on paper. When it was ov ...

I was hoarding my paychecks, in case I needed the money for tuition. Dad noticed and started charging me for small things. Mothe ...

Shawn returned to work, hobbling unsteadily. He wore an Aussie outback hat, which was large, wide-brimmed, and made of chocolate ...

Dad’s head got caught, the blades wouldn’t even slow, just hack through his neck and keep chomping. Now that he was sure the mac ...

Shawn’s eyes bulged. He was supposed to be taking it easy, but he looked apoplectic. “It’s going to take her head off!” he screa ...

Dad leave, then he turned to me and said, “Okay, Siddle Liss. You bring the pieces and I’ll feed them through. If the iron is th ...

16 Disloyal Man, Disobedient Heaven Construction began on the milking barn in Oneida. Shawn designed and welded the main frame—t ...

his welding and ambled over to the flatbed pickup. Dad followed, still hollering. Shawn pulled off his gloves, slowly, delicatel ...

I drove in a happy stupor. The night was black—that thick darkness that belongs only in backcountry, where the houses are few an ...

My cellphone was in my pocket. I dialed. Dad answered. I must have been frantic, sputtering. I said Shawn had crashed his bike, ...