From Ashes to Honor Read Online Free PDF Page A

Finley.
    "Thanks, Flora, but I'll be getting in kinda late. The captain said if I don't get caught up on my reports, he'll put me on KP duty for a month." He gave a final wave, knowing, even as he ducked back into his pilot house, that when his shift ended he'd sneak onto his boat to spare her feelings. Again.
    He heard her voice, fading as he descended the ladder: "All right then, I'll save the leftovers for you."
    Grinning, he shook his head, because something told him that by six bells, he'd be eating shrimp Creole at the chrome and red-marbled Formica table in Bud and Flora's narrow galley.
    And he wouldn't have it any other way.

4
     
     
    M ercy hated wishing her life away, but she could hardly wait for the construction crew to finish up. The old brick structure felt cold and drafty between November and March, and stifling the rest of the year, especially on her side of the building.
    A humid blast of air sneaked past the crumbling caulk of the dingy tilt-out window nearest her desk, and she reached for a bottle of spring water. "Patience," she muttered, unscrewing the cap, because in no time she'd exchange the stack of sweat-blotting paper towels on the corner of her desk for the portable heater that would have her reaching for hand lotion, instead.
    All things considered, she had very little to complain about.The drive from her end-of-row townhouse in Baltimore's historic Fells Point neighborhood took a pleasant fifteen minutes, now that students with drivers licenses weren't on the roads; and because school wouldn't officially start for another three weeks, she could wear capris and flip-flops, a tank top and a ponytail instead of her traditional flowing skirts and blouses.In New York, she'd never owned a home or a car, never had a pet, and since resigning from the department and moving here at the insistence of her college roommate, she had all three— and a gratifying job as a guidance counselor, as well.
    Her work day began like every other, with a cheery welcome from the gray-haired cop assigned to the main entrance."Mercy, Mercy, Mercy," he sing-songed Billy Crystal style, "you look mah- velous this morning, simply mah- velous!" He'd delivered the same greeting every morning of the three years she'd been affiliated with the high school. Would there ever come a day when she didn't blush as she thanked him for the compliment?
    Mercy hurried to her office, passing a bank of pea green lockers, then a row of pasty yellow ones. Who chooses these nauseating colors? she thought as a line of sickly coral lockers came into view. For the time being, at least they looked clean and tidy. What a pity that by the third week of classes, chips and dings, fingerprints and lipstick would dull the semi-gloss sheen. As her sandals click-clacked over the polished linoleum, she thought of her own high school days, when metal detectors and policemen at the door were unheard of, and when parents ambled in and out of schools without the need to sign a book, or submit to being frisked by an armed guard. Her mood brightened slightly as she heard her father's gruff voice comparing the scenario to the dictatorship he'd grown up in.
    Memories of her dad could be happy and lighthearted— and could just as easily lead to dark and depressing thoughts.Mercy consciously focused on the peculiar layout of the tiles. If the blue squares led to the main office or the science lab, they might have made sense. Instead, a row here and a row there merely connected with pink and green squares, or formed ridiculous zigzags across the floor, as if they'd been designed and slapped into place by a crew of drunken construction workers. In her high school, teachers insisted that kids going north stay on one side of the hall, those headed south on the other. "No running allowed!" was an all too-familiar shout.No wonder these kids moved from classroom to classroom between periods like dizzy cattle, recently turned loose from weeks in a too-small corral!
    In most