Sunshine and Shadows Read Online Free PDF Page B

on a picture she was drawing. Her thick black hair curved over her cheekbones, and she had brushed it behind her ears from time to time with a distinctively impatient flip of the wrist. She was a beautiful child with that brown skin and black eyes, but that wasn't what had impressed him the most. It was Connie's sheer raw talent and her own placid acceptance of it that struck him on that first day. It was only later that he realized Connie's rare capacity for interpreting the human condition with her head as well as her heart.
    Three years ago, when he had first remarked upon her, Sister Maria had told Jay that Connie was the brightest student in the third grade. Since then Connie had never earned less than an E for Excellent on any of her report cards.
    Connie looked to him, her beloved art teacher, for guidance, and he'd done his best. One life, a twelve-year-old girl's life, hung in the balance. Art could be her salvation, so it was up to him to offer encouragement and show her that there were better ways to live than the way she was living now.
    After Hildy ate her dinner and retired to her bed in the kitchen closet, Jay flipped on the stereo and flung himself down on the couch in the living room. He should throw in a load of laundry, clean up his studio, coax Hildy outside for a walk.
    He should have, but he didn't do any of those things. Instead he pictured Lisa Sherrill, who looked like a child when she was wearing overalls, like a mother when she was taking care of children and like a temptress when she wore a short skirt. And who would have expected to find a temptress in the dining hall at the Faith Mission?
    * * *
    "Sister Maria, you can do me a favor," he said on the following Wednesday, his regular day at the mission.
    "I'd give you the world if I could," she said, beaming up at him from the desk in her office.
    He sat down in the chair across from her.
    "I don't need the whole world," he said. "Only a phone number."
    "I'd give you the phone number to heaven itself if you asked," she said. "But, then, we have other channels to God, so perhaps it's one of his angels you'd prefer to speak with."
    "Maybe she is at that," he said lightly. "It's Lisa Sherrill."
    Sister Maria lifted an eyebrow. "Lisa Sherrill. Yes, she's delightful, isn't she?"
    "Don't go getting any ideas," he warned.
    "Ideas? Me? I'm sure you only want to discuss business with her, right?" Sister Maria blinked innocently at him from behind her bifocals.
    "The children are going to paint panels for the dining hall. I need to discuss it with Lisa, and she's not in the kitchen this afternoon. Sister Clementine said that she's gone to West Palm Beach for a meeting," he said.
    "Yes, a meeting of professional dietitians, I believe. Here it is in her personal folder—her land line and cell phone numbers." The nun scribbled on a scrap of paper and handed it across the desk to Jay.
    "Thanks," he said.
    "Jay," Sister Maria said when he turned to go.
    He looked over his shoulder, saw that she looked unusually serious, and halted in the doorway. He turned around to face her.
    "Jay, you really should have more of a social life. I worry about you," she said.
    Sister Maria was the only person at Faith Mission who knew why he gave so much time to their work; the two of them had mined this conversational ground before.
    "I'm fine, Sister," he said patiently.
    "It isn't natural for a young man like you to hang out with a bunch of children and nuns."
    "For me it is," he said quietly. "You know why."
    "It's not a good enough reason. You deserve a life, and what you have isn't much of one by most people's standards."
    "I don't live by most people's standards—not any more."
    "I never want to lose you as a volunteer at the mission, but even I can see that it's not enough for you. If you're thinking of becoming friends with a young lady, you couldn't find a nicer one than Lisa. By the way, the advice is free."
    "The trouble with giving me advice is that someday I may want