excerpt
“You’re not eating much, Aunt Millie. Perhaps that’s your trouble.
Don’t you feel hungry?”
Millie had smiled and got up to put preserved peaches and peanut
butter cookies on the table. “Just a result of feeling weary, nothing
more. Don’t worry yourself, dear boy. I’m fine.”
But she had not convinced him, and the thing he had been hoping
to talk to her about – Rachael’s problematic friendship with Lyssa –
had been put off. He knew he couldn’t burden Aunt Millie further,
even if she was, as she said, just tired.
Ronald turned over in bed – again – and looked at his alarm
clock. Almost midnight! He may as well have gone to the dance in
Spirit Lake after all, except that he didn’t have a date. Not that it mattered
much, but his friends were all dating now and he didn’t want to
appear more of an outsider than he already knew he was. Sometimes
those same friends razzed him for not drinking or smoking. He had
tried smoking when he was fourteen but decided he would rather be
an outsider than suffer the choking and coughing that resulted from
his first drag on a cigarette. They also razzed him occasionally for
going to church, especially Morley’s church.
“Holy Rollers,” they would say with disdain. “Hey, Harrison,
what do they do in that church, anyway?”
And more than once Ronald, refusing to be riled or offended, had
answered, “Why don’t you come see for yourselves?”
With the realization that in just a few hours he would be getting
up to go to church, Ronald sighed, settled his head more comfortably
on the pillow and tried to put Aunt Millie, Rachael and every other
thought out of his mind.
ͣͣ
Tyne closed her Bible and placed it on the bedside table, being careful
not to disturb Morley who had been asleep for some time. Rachael
must be due home, but so far Tyne hadn’t heard her come in.
Manolis Aligizakis 