Good-bye and Amen Read Online Free PDF

of vision. Very eerie.
    We saw a meadow with a couple of apple trees, and aclump of huge alders and other trees that Nicky said meant an old cellar hole was there. We decided to go exploring. The whole world had gone silent, except for that rustle and buzz that summer makes. We found the boulders that must have made up the foundation of a house or barn lining a pit that was filled now with a huge pine and some scrub. A little rusty-colored snake about a foot long was sunning itself on one of the boulders. Before I could show it to Monica, zip! It was gone. A small path led off toward the wood, and we decided to follow it. We’d gone only a few steps when Boom! there was this thunderous flapflapflapping right beside us. I nearly jumped out of my skin. Out of the meadow rose a blue heron. Gorgeous. A farm pond was concealed in the high grass there where she’d been taking the sun, and we must have scared her more than she scared us. She was utterly lovely.
    I felt as if some sort of veil that separates us from God’s creation had dropped for a moment, that the heron and the weeping woman were all one thing, but Nicky thought it was creepy, that I could hear something that she couldn’t, so we went back to the boat.
    I kept thinking about that out-of-body weeping. It made me think of Mary Magdalene, with her Lord dead in the tomb. Why could I hear it, and not Nicky? It seemed like a message from the universe. Okay, Norman. You’ve had your time in the desert. You’ve built your known world out of the rules of men. Now it’s time to turn to what that world of laws leaves out, that still can’t be explained or denied. I’d heard that heartbroken weeping from a woman who wasn’t there. What was I going to do, decide I didn’t believe it?
    I mentioned it the next day down at the post office. InDundee they don’t have RFD, everyone goes to the post office every morning. The postmaster said, “Nobody’s heard from her in a long time. Did you see her?” I said I hadn’t, but was intrigued that others knew about her. I knew I hadn’t imagined it. I asked if he knew who she was. He said, “Some think they do. You must have gone up into the graveyard. That gets her going.”
    Isn’t that interesting?
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    Bobby Applegate I assume they went out to the graveyard to screw. It’s secluded and peaceful and you’re not afraid your future mother-in-law is going to come popping in on you. Some of my fondest memories involve that graveyard. But we never heard anything weird out there.
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    Monica Faithful A lot of out-of-towners came to the wedding. Mother had all her Connecticut friends up. Jeannie was maid of honor, and Eleanor matron. Norman had some friends from law school. And of course, his mother. I had met Norman’s mother once. We went out to Indiana for Thanksgiving to tell her we were getting married. She must have known that’s what we’d come to tell her, but she didn’t make it easy. There was a lot of sighing over Thanksgiving without children. She had pictures of the Happy Family all over the living room, Norman and Rachel with Sam and Sylvia.
    I was determined to make Hazel love me. I was going to be the perfect daughter-in-law.
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    Jeannie Israel Mrs. Faithful was a tough nut. In my clinical opinion, she was in love with Norman. I sat beside her at the rehearsal dinner, which Monica’s grandmother gave at herhouse since Norman’s mother had no idea that usually the groom’s family did that. It was lobster, to give the out-of-towners a treat. Mrs. Faithful had never eaten one, and she didn’t know not to wear her Sunday best. She was mostly silent, struggling with this red armored bug on her plate. I showed her how to use the cracker to open the claws and she tried it and fish juice squirted all over her dress, which looked like her church dress to me. Silk, with a white shawl collar. Oh dear.
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    My wife