Sufficient Grace Read Online Free Page B

pressed. He’s carrying something, but that gentle push to tell everyone everything — to share your heart and sacrifice deepest desires and secrets — can feel more like a shove sometimes; it is relentless. Mom and Daddy just want to guard our hearts, keep us protected and clean. But now and then a body needs to keep its own secret space, maybe running down the middle of the soul like a candlewick.
    Mom don’t want any secrets; anything she knows she shares. She believes light always drives the dark away, but praying with Grandma and Gloria and the other ladies of the church shines the light even where it might shouldn’t go. Daddy must feel useless, pushed aside, that even while he looks after Reuben’s body — feeding, clothing and keeping him in every way — Uncle Ingwald’s guiding Reuben’s soul is held in higher value. Reuben should have thought twice about raising that hand, but he’s got to learn it in his own time, I guess. It takes steady water to shape stone.
    I feel a quick pull of my braid, and my head snaps back hard. My cousin Samuel is holding my hair and smirking. This boy should already be a man, but he plays too much and too rough. And he won’t be broken. Held up by his own daddy, our pastor, as a man with a call on him, my cousin won’t walk straight for nothing. Feigning like the angel his blonde curly halo makes them see, he’ll act for the elders and the ladies, taking his turn at passing out communion or praying and laying on hands for the sick. Samuel will sit at the front of the church facing his own father and hold his face just right for them, downcast eyes and serious lips. But he only wants the praise, never the toil: he won’t stack aluminum chairs after potluck supper and he won’t shovel snow from the sidewalk. Samuel walks in the light of the Lord when it’s warm but won’t sweat in labour or freeze in the cold. Tonight, he won’t even agree in prayer for Reuben. He’s held up at church while they push him down at school; none of us kids stand up to none of them — not to our parents, not to the kids at school. Samuel stands crooked: he only lets them think he ain’t strong.
    â€˜Why you hiding, Ruth?’ Samuel crouches down and his face is below my waist. ‘Reuben telling them something he shouldn’t?’ He’s teasing but asking too.
    I didn’t even think of that. ‘He don’t know nothing to tell.’ Now I’m wondering what my brother is saying, and if he does have something to say about me.
    â€˜Maybe he’s guilty himself; that’s what I think.’ Samuel rocks back and forth on his haunches. The coats swing on their hangers. ‘But I do believe, you’ve got some reason to be hiding here.’
    How he knows, I never know. Maybe he can smell it. Whenever I’ve got something to hide, Samuel always seems to see. Maybe it’s because when everyone else is moving and walking, Samuel watches and waits — like me.
    I’m caught, so I’ve got to spread the blame. ‘Eat this.’ My stretched-out hand holds half a candy bar, the chocolate melted into my palm. ‘Christmas candy; you can’t tell.’
    While everyone was praying, I stole into the storage cupboard and took one of the children’s gifts; we each get a store-bought candy bar on Christmas Day. Not like we don’t sometimes get candy, we do; but this is bought special and we’re supposed to wait.
    Samuel winks one shiny eye and smiles wide; he gets up and takes a piece and slips it into his mouth. As much as he is sneaky, he is kind; to hold up under what they want from him takes more than I have.
    While I’m part disappointed for having to share and part enjoying the secret, Aunt Gloria’s quick voice makes me straighten my back and swallow fast. She sees us; there aren’t enough coats in the world to blind Gloria’s eyes. Samuel