“How long did it take granpa?” she asked.
“How long did what take, flower?”
“How long did it take everyone here to rebuild everything?”
“Oh”, a slight twist of the mouth was the only tell of what he was really thinking. “That weren’t really too big a probl’m.”
“Why not?”
“Well. We didn’t need to rebuild nothin’. It was the same then as it is now. We knew it would be. We thought about that ahead a’ time.”
She looked at him; looked at the worn leather around his eyes. She could tell more about what he was thinking by the part around his eyes than she could by looking directly into the orbs themselves. He could hide only so much from her, he was after all a passionate man and had to wear his heart somewhere.
“But…but why haven’t we built anything since then, granpa? Why isn’t there anything new?"
"D'y'think we need it?” he asked, still playfully.
“Oh, I dunno…”
“C'mon sweetie,” he said, changing tack, “let’s get up and check the barn. I’m sure we can find something to do there. If'n I don’t get up soon, my back’ll start t’ act up” he said, straightening his shoulders.
“Wait granpa, tell me more. What do the other people out there do? What do they look like? Are their houses like ours? Will I ever––”
“You cut that out!" The lines around his face had lost most of their curves and his mouth was thin. "It’s not normal t'think about these things, you stick t'keeping the farm in mind and don’t bother with nothin’ else, y'hear?" He stood up and planted her on her feet, stretching beside the padded chair and straightening his shirt. "Yer too young t'talk about things like these. Now c'mon, we’re headin’ outside.”
She wasn’t mad. She wasn’t even disappointed. This was how a number of their conversations had ended over the past year. She used to feel bad about making him upset like this, but now it just made her think. ‘How could things have been so bad that even now he didn’t want to think about anything outside of the village?’ she wondered. 'Could it have been that bad? Could it still be that bad?’