Shine Read Online Free PDF Page B

said. “To your friend.
Patrick
.”
    Her lips pursed, and I figured there must be a bit of a struggle going on inside her. Jesus said love the sinner, hate the sin, and while I knew old Mrs. Lawson was incapable of loving Patrick, surely she didn’t
hate
him, did she? A bangedup boy nearly the same age as her precious Tommy, lying in a coma with no one to stand up for him?
    Tommy said nothing. I lifted my gaze, because I had to see what battle of conscience—if any—was playing out on his features.
    “Who do
you
think hurt him?” I heard myself say. My words were made of stone, as cold and unforgiving as the outcroppings of granite that rose above the banks of the creek our town was named for.
    A flush crept up his neck. “How the fuck would I know? And if I did, wouldn’t I say?”
    “Tommy,” old Mrs. Lawson scolded.
    I watched him. He was good looking, the snake, even in oil-stained jeans and a stupid shirt that said 4 stroke, whatever that meant.
    But Tommy didn’t look good right now, not with his face twisted up.
    “Sorry, Grandmother,” he said gruffly.
    “You’re going against your raising,” Mrs. Lawson said. As if to excuse her grandson’s behavior, she faced me and explained, “Tommy was with him earlier that evening. That makes it especially painful, of course.”
    Of course.
    “I’ve got to go,” I said, turning on my heel.
    “What an odd child,” I heard Mrs. Lawson murmur.
    Then, from Tommy, “She ain’t a child, Grandmother.”
    “
Isn’t
a child,” Mrs. Lawson corrected, and I was out the door.

 
    AT HOME, I CHANGED INTO MY EVERYDAY CLOTHES, and then Aunt Tildy and I cooked up our big Sunday meal: fried chicken, crowder peas, cornbread, and a mess of green beans. Oh, and tomatoes. Had to have tomatoes in the summertime, picked fresh and lightly salted.
    I fixed a plate for Daddy and delivered it to him in his trailer out back. He moved out there when my mama died and had stayed ever since. He took the plate, settled it on the built-in TV tray of his belly, and pulled out the jug of Aunt Jemima syrup he kept under the La-Z-Boy. “You ain’t gonna tell on me to your aunt Tildy, are you, kitten?” he said.
    That’s what he called me, like I was an itty-bitty puffball with a yawning mouth and harmless claws.
    He poured the syrup over his food, and I said, “That is just nasty, Daddy.”
    He laughed, and I could smell the corn liquor on his breath. Also, the sour odor of him needing a bath. Sadness overwhelmed me: for Patrick, for Daddy, for the whole hard lot of everything.
    Daddy must have picked up on it, because concern clouded his eyes. “What’s wrong, sweet pea?” That was his other nickname for me. I was either a kitten or a sweet pea, each incapable of making a dent in the world’s injustice.
    Of course, my big smelly daddy was pretty helpless himself. I loved Daddy, but in the way I might love a loyal old dog who could no longer follow me around, just thump his tail whenever I came near.
    “Ah, nothing, Daddy.” I tried for a smile. “I’m fine.”
    “You know what you need?” he said as he forked a mouthful of syrup-drenched chicken into his mouth. “Some good clean sunshine. Yessir, that’s exactly what you need.” This, from a man who spent his days holed up in his trailer, with just his liquor bottles and his TV for company.
    “Okay, Daddy,” I said.
    He wasn’t done. “Young girl like you? You should be out stirring up trouble with your friends, not bothering with all them books you read. You know it’s them books what make you talk funny.”
    “Ha-ha,” I said, as this was an old joke between us. He poked fun at my
school learnin’
, as he called it. Daddy liked to teaseme, but I knew he was secretly proud that I hadn’t dropped out of school like so many other kids, including my brother. Patrick and Bailee-Ann and I were the only kids from Black Creek to complete our junior year at Toomsboro High last month, and the three of us were the only