Noah's Wife Read Online Free Page A

we’ve heard about the weather here?” she asks Mrs. McGinn. “Has it really been raining for so long?”
    Mrs. McGinn hates this question. “Yes,” she says curtly. “It’s been raining a long time.”
    Long enough to drive the mayor away, after all; long enough to lose most of the old police force, many of the shopkeepers, the artists, the businessmen. The sheriff has kept his office inthe decaying town hall and there are still two firefighters with little else to do but play poker in the empty firehouse, since most everything is too damp to burn. A few years back they were so short on teachers that they started busing children to a school a few districts over. It is Mrs. McGinn’s husband, in fact, who drives the bus there and back on muddy roads, one trip in the morning and one in the afternoon, an hour each way. He doesn’t like the job, of course; he claims that the crying of the children nearly drives him off the road.
    Worst of all was the effect of the rain on the zoo. That zoo had been what placed them on the map; it was what made them famous, what provided their income, what gave this town its character. There are exotic animal tracks in the sidewalk, for goodness’ sake; there are statues of polar bears and elephants at intersections. The walls of the diner are crowded with wildlife paintings, and most of the townspeople sport zoo paraphernalia on their key chains, T-shirts, and jackets. In the old glory days, items such as these would fly off the shelves faster than Mauro could stock them, but lately he has been giving them away for free. The townspeople used to find it hard to believe that what had started out as a two-goat operation in a businessman’s backyard had grown into a two-hundred-animal operation that drew high-rolling tourists all the way from the other side of the country. Now they find it hard to believe that the institution that allowed them to flourish for so long has wilted and waned to such an extent that no one but the zookeeper and his fiancéewill set foot in it. They shake their heads, disgusted by their situation. And what is there to do about it? they would like to know. Nobody goes to the zoo in the rain.
    â€œIs there any explanation for the weather?” Noah wants to know, taking over from his wife. “It’s amazing that so many of you are still here, with conditions like these.”
    Mrs. McGinn frowns, and her entire face puckers. “Well, there used to be a lot more of us,” she says finally. “This place is nothing like it once was.”
    It hurts her to admit this, as it always does. Mrs. McGinn understands perfectly well that this town has its problems, and that these days it is difficult to scratch out a life for oneself here. She knows that when her daughter’s classmates and friends decided to establish careers for themselves in teaching, in business, in law, they looked elsewhere because this town had no real future for businesses more ambitious than her own diner, Mauro’s general store, the dwindling demands on the single pharmacy, the department store, or anything other than the very bare essentials required for life in a small gray ghost town. She suspects that even her own daughter is champing at the bit to leave this place, and she is well aware that once the girl is gone, there will be little reason for her to return. Mrs. McGinn is a woman of strong convictions, but she is no fool. She knows how the world works.
    â€œWhat we need from you, Minister, is some kind of action,” she says now to Noah. “The rain has kept us too low for too long. We don’t know why it’s still raining, and we don’t knowwhy Reverend Matthews did what he did. People are looking for answers, and now that you’re here, they’ll be looking to you. I hope you won’t let us down.”
    If Noah’s face loses some of its enthusiastic color at her words, Mrs. McGinn does not