Read the story. Home

Hattie stepped off the screeching subway train and lugged her possessions onto the escalator. When she finally emerged from underground, she got to the sidewalk and looked at the landscape. She was used to flatness and green; the farm that they’d just sold had cattle grazing as far as the eye could see. There was nothing green in sight here as cement behemoths sprung out of the ground taller than the stalks of corn back in Iowa. People zipped in front of her with briefcases tucked to their sides as high heels clacked on the pavement. It was all so overwhelming, so loud, and Hattie put her hands over her ears to shut out the sounds of the taxi horns and the thousand different conversations. Her little sister Evelyn didn’t; she was trying to take it all in.

Her mother pulled out a map from her purse and held it in shaky hands. “According to this, our new home should be right here.”

Hattie traced her mother’s index finger to a building that was so high that she had to crane her neck to see the top.

“This?” Evelyn gasped.

Her father, the man who was never at a loss for words, didn’t say anything. He adjusted the weight of the three bags that contained most of the possessions they’d been able to bring on the three-hour plane journey that had uprooted them from their old lives and deposited them in New York City.

Her father struggled to open the heavy front door, and when they were inside, the smell of hundreds of different meals clashed in her nose: spaghetti, fried chicken, fish, and curry. They stood in front of a bank of elevators as Evelyn pushed the button for the seventeenth floor. When they entered what would be their new home, Hattie spun around in tiny circles as her father gave them the “grand” tour.

“Here is where you and Evelyn will sleep,” he announced. He pointed to a room that was half the size of the Iowa bedroom that was hers alone, the same Iowa bedroom where she’d had all her sleepovers and whose walls still showcased the crayon scribbles from when she was a toddler. She’d tried to scrub them clean, but they were more stubborn than she was, so they would be there for the new family that would be moving in soon.

Evelyn tried to sound excited. “We get to share a room!”

Hattie was grateful for her younger sister, for the way that she could always look at the bright side of things. Hattie couldn’t say anything in response—she’d been speechless for most of the trip. Instead, she followed her father down the hallway that was narrow enough for one person to fit through, maybe two if they squeezed shoulder to shoulder.

“And here is where your mom and I will be.” She could hear the forced excitement in her father’s voice for a move that he didn’t want to make either. But they’d had to sell the farm, and when this opportunity presented itself, there had really been no choice.

The tour was over as soon as it started—tiny kitchen, one bathroom, boxy living room. The four of them would be sharing an apartment that was smaller than the drafty old kitchen in the farmhouse.

Without a word, they grabbed boxes and started about the business of unpacking in rooms that were inches away from one another rather than feet. Hattie walked over to a dirty square window in her new shared bedroom. She wiped it clean, hoping to see something that would remind her of Iowa, but the window only looked out onto more concrete and glass. A wave of sadness washed over her—the first crack in the numbness that she’d been feeling for the past month since she found out about the move. She turned her back and lowered her head so Evelyn wouldn’t see her, but then the sobs came, each louder than the previous one.

There was a hand on her shoulder. She wanted to put the smile back on because she knew it would be better for Evelyn and everyone else that way, but she couldn’t summon it now. She turned around and saw her blurry sister through tear-filled eyes. In front of her face, Evelyn was holding a folded-up picture of the whole family in front of the farmhouse.

“I miss it too,” Evelyn began, “but we don’t have to forget it.”

Together, they taped the picture to the corner of the bedroom window so they could see it whenever they wanted. Hattie pulled Evelyn close, knowing that a place would never be as important as the people in it.

How does the setting of "Home" help to reveal Evelyn's character?

Evelyn shows resilience by embracing the family's busy new life in New York City.

Evelyn shows selfishness by longing for the memories left behind in her old house in Iowa.

Evelyn shows self-pity by crying with her sister over their lost life in Iowa.

Evelyn shows ungratefulness by complaining about the shared New York bedroom.