It seemed like such a faraway place now, East Tennessee. She was at home there. It would always be her home, no matter where else she might live, she thought. She was born in the house she lived in until they moved to Nebraska last August. If she could, she would move back to East Tennessee in a heartbeat. Especially now, this moment as she lay in Mom and Dad's bed, she longed to go back home. She tried to count her blessings, knowing that an "abortion doctor" would be arriving soon. Maybe if she thought good thoughts, it would make everything easier. East Tennessee always brought back good feelings. The people in the Appalachian Mountains where the Stark family lived, the "hill people," or "hillbillies" as some folks called them, liked to say they lived in a different time zone from the rest of the country. It wasn't a reference to the geographic time zones that everybody knows about. It was a reference to their way of life. The hill people lived mostly on farms or in very small towns.
