Sweet Jesus Read Online Free PDF Page B

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    Mary-Beth glanced up from the TV to give Connie a sympathetic look. Connie’s occasional outbursts of muted profanity encouraged her. As she’d once told her, they were a reassuring sign of defiance in an otherwise obedient life.
    Whatever happened, Connie said with regained composure, to the private interior reward of virtue?
    The private interior reward of virtue? Mary-Beth repeated.
    Well, you know what I mean, Connie said and carried the tray out to the kitchen.
    Connie ran the hot water and squeezed some lavender dish soap into the sink. She didn’t mind washing the dishes because a frugal upbringing had taught her to spare the appliances. Besides, it was an excuse to warm her hands. Connie held her wrists under the warm flow from the tap and prayed.
Oh God, Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible, very God of very God, begotten not made, being of one substance with the Father – and from whom all good things flow
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    Sometimes a string of religious words would pearl through Connie’s mind, like beads dragged through her fingers. It wasn’t quite prayer, it was too unbidden, and it made her a little nervous, but she dearly loved the sound of the words she heard in church and so her mind poured them forth, only she knew on these occasions it was out of a love of their sound and not their meaning. Sometimes she wished she had Mary-Beth’s fearless evangelical faith. They had run the Vancouver halfmarathon together last spring, and the night before, Mary-Beth had had a vision and felt called to testify. To the back of her t-shirt, under her runner’s number, she’d pinned a handwrittensign –
Jesus is my Coach, I am running with my Saviour, to the finish line
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    Connie was cautious, however, that these proclamations should be uttered in a spirit of absolute sincerity. Faith without vigilance made you an easy target for hypocrisy. The devil will want to get you, Connie’s parish priest had once told her, because your parents are such Godly people. He will want to win you over to his camp. And Connie had understood that there was a power to be harnessed in God’s name, that it required a reverence and a sanctity. It was something she admired about the Jews and the Muslims, how they refused to spell out the names of their gods in full. The way the Muslims wove flaws into their carpets so they wouldn’t be committing idolatry or mimicking God’s perfection on earth.
    The floodlights came on outside, giving the reflection in the dark window above the sink an eerie depth, at exactly the same moment Mary-Beth yelled from the living room, It’s on! The sudden interruption gave Connie’s body a jolt. She answered, Coming! and wondered why these kinds of collisions seemed to happen so often. It was like being jolted out of sleep by a noise that coincides with a dream, the way a car on the street can squeal at the very moment someone taps you on the shoulder in a dream. Connie looked at the clock. Her husband should’ve been home by now. Where are you, Harlan?
    Connie dried her hands and left the kitchen. She leaned through the French doors into the living room. I’m just going to go check on the kids.
    Okay, Mary-Beth said without turning away from the TV . It’s just the preliminaries. You haven’t missed anything yet.
    Connie went upstairs and looked into Emma’s bedroom – her eldest at eight years old, mouth open, hair like caramel sauce. A storybook was jammed between her mattress and theheadboard. Connie carefully pulled it out like a sliver, then put the book back on the shelf and went into Theo’s room. He lay on top of his covers like a starfish, with his head at the foot of the bed. She could hear the surrender in his breathing, his complete trust in the moment. She picked him up, turned him around, and tucked him in again. She went into Simon’s room across the hall. Si was six years old, three years older than Theo, and he lay curled up on his side with