Forgiveness Read Online Free Page B

propelled him to the doorway. When he landed, instinct took over. He tried to grasp the archway as he scrambled to gain his footing. That didn’t work. His father’s boot plowed into his lower back. He was licked. All he could do was close his eyes and curl up into a ball. It was his only hope. It took three more kicks for the storm to pass. The last kick sent him flailing right through the open patio door. Ralph lay in the mud of the backyard, bloodied and battered.
    I have never seen my grandfather dance.
    If Ralph’s father was the darkness in his life, his mother was the light. Susan MacLean was his saving grace. Grace comes in many forms, and God works in mysterious ways. Ralph knew this through his mother. He never called her Mother. It was always “Dearest Mother,” because that’s what she was. When he speaks of her at length, which he often does, his Maritime accent washes ashore and mother becomes “mutter.”
    Susan had eight children to feed, clothe, and make right with her Lord: Irene, Ada, Arthur, Lillian, Mabel, Greta, Ralph, and Ford. Little Irene met her Lord after only two years of life. The remaining seven would read about Him every night as soon as the dinner dishes were done.
    Ralph MacLean’s very first memory was of red Mandarin writing on a storefront window. He was in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. The red letters were followed by his second memory: being chased by an angry Chinese launderer armed with a hot iron.
    Ralph and his rascal of a little brother, Ford, had been sent to Charlottetown under the care of their eldest sister. It was their first time away from home. Their sister Ada had moved to Prince Edward Island during the winter of 1926. Ada was older and busy with her own budding family, so the boys at seven and five were largely on their own, which was just how they liked it.
    On that particular day, Ada had given them each two bits and they’d bought candy bars on their way down to the shoreline. Ralph and Ford ate their chocolate by the water, which was calm that day, and skipped rocks off the wharf. On their way back to Ada’s, they passed a Chinese laundry. The lettering on the window was exotic. They’d never seen anything like it. Different meant from away. Different was feared and desired. Different had a name: “chink.”
    “That’s a chink’s shop,” Ford said.
    Ralph wondered what
chink
meant. He’d never heard the word before. How had his kid brother got the jump on him?
    “Chink!” Ford repeated for effect.
    The two boys looked at each other, then turned and stared past the lettering into the shop.
    A man was pressing shirts just behind the small counter while a woman swept the foyer. Neither boy had ever seen Chinese people before. They looked different than the people they were accustomed to. It was their eyes that captured Ralph’s attention and prompted his imagination. He tried to figure out how these folks had got here. What did they like? Could they skate on the pond in the winter? They may as well have been aliens. Ralph was in awe. Ford was not.
    An ocean breeze picked up and blew road dust into their faces. Ford squinted and spit on the wooden platform in front of the shop.
    “Hey, Chinaman,” he called through the open door.
    The man slowly raised his head. He knew what was coming.Ford put his little chubby fingers to his eyes and pulled them across his face. The grime behind his nails betrayed his poverty. The four people stood still, just staring at one another. Now that Ford had the man’s attention, he wasn’t sure what to do with it. The shop owner surely hoped that the two boys before him would simply decide they had had their fun and move on. But Ford could not help himself. At five, he’d been beaten enough to understand that the strong can force themselves on the weak. He had never been the strong. He liked turning the tables.
    “You and your wife are
chinks
!”
    Taking abuse from a five- and seven-year-old proved too much for