Winter Moon Read Online Free PDF Page B

was such a good kid. Her guilt was the irrational if inescapable result of being, by nature and by choice, a working woman who, in this deep recession, was not permitted to work.
        She had submitted applications to twenty-six companies. Now all she could do was wait. And read Dick Francis.
        The melodramatic music and comic voices on the television didn't distract her.
        Indeed, the fragrant coffee, the comfort of the chair, and the cold sound of winter rain drumming on the roof combined to take her mind off her worries and let her slip into the novel.
        Heather had been reading fifteen minutes when Toby said, "Mom?"
        "Hmmm?" she said, without looking up from her book.
        "Why do cats always want to kill mice?"
        Marking her place in the book with her thumb, she glanced at the television, where a different cat and mouse were involved in another slapstick chase, the former pursuing the latter this time.
        "Why can't they be friends with mice," the boy asked, "instead of wanting to kill them all the time?"
        "It's just a cat's nature," she said.
        "But why?"
        "It's the way God made cats."
        "Doesn't God like mice?"
        "Well, He must, because He made mice too."
        "Then why make cats to kill them?"
        "If mice didn't have natural enemies like cats and owls and coyotes, they'd overrun the world."
        "Why would they overrun the world?"
        "Because they give birth to litters, not single babies."
        "So?"
        "So if they didn't have natural enemies to control their numbers, there'd be a trillion billion mice eating up all the food in the world, with nothing left for cats or us."
        "If God didn't want mice to overrun the world, why didn't He just make them so they have single babies at a time?"
        Adults always lost the Why Game, because eventually the train of questions led to a dead-end track with no answer..Heather said, "You got me there, kiddo."
        "I think it's mean to make mice have a lot of babies and then make cats to kill them."
        "You'll have to discuss that with God, I'm afraid."
        "You mean when I go to bed tonight and say my prayers?"
        "Best time," she said, freshening the coffee in her mug with the supply in the thermos.
        Toby said, "I always ask Him questions, then I always fall asleep before He answers me. Why does He let me fall asleep before I can get the answer?"
        "That's the way God works. He only talks to you in your sleep. If you listen, then you wake up with the answer."
        She was proud of that one. She seemed to be holding her own.
        Frowning, Toby said, "But usually I still don't know the answer when I wake up. Why don't I know it if He told me?"
        Heather took a few sips of coffee to gain time. Then she said, "Well, see, God doesn't want to just give you all the answers. The reason we're here on this world is to find the answers ourselves, to learn and gain understanding by our own efforts."
        Good. Very good. She felt modestly exhilarated, as if she'd held on longer than she'd any right to expect in a tennis match with a world-class player.
        Toby said, "Mice aren't the only things get chased and killed. For every animal, there's another animal wants to tear it to pieces." He glanced at the TV. "See, there, like dogs want to murder cats."
        The cat that had been chasing the mouse was now, in turn, being pursued by a fierce-looking bulldog in a spiked collar.
        Looking at his mother again, Toby said, "Why does every animal have another animal that wants to kill it? Would cats overrun the world without their natural enemies?"
        The Why Game train had come to another dead end in the track. Oh, yes, she could have discussed the concept of original sin, told him how the world had been a serene realm of peace and plenty until Eve and Adam had fallen from grace and let death into