The Mourning Hours Read Online Free Page A

strawberry-blonde and shorter, was what Stacy would look like if she went through the wash a few times. We smiled our hellos.
    “When’s the next softball game?” Stacy asked as her sisters stepped up to the counter to order.
    “Next Tuesday, I think.”
    She smiled that Stacy smile, wide and white. “Well, maybe I’ll see you then.”
    My eyes tracked her as she placed her order, produced a folded bill from her skirt pocket to pay and made small talk with the girl behind the counter. I remembered what Emilie had said the other night, that Stacy used to date the quarterback of the mighty Lincoln High Shipbuilders. Even though what I knew about football was limited to helmets and “hut-hut” and touchdowns, I knew that the quarterback was a big deal. Everyone in all of Wisconsin knew who Brett Favre was, after all.
    I saw Stacy only a few days later at the library, while Dad was down the street at the feed store. I was curled up in a bean bag, leafing through an encyclopedia and wondering for the millionth time why reference books couldn’t be checked out like anything else. It hardly seemed fair.
    Suddenly, Stacy was squatting beside me, a book in her hand. “Oh, hey! I keep bumping into you!”
    I beamed. It would be fair to say that by this time I was already half in love with Stacy Lemke. She looked happier to see me than the members of my own family did, even the ones I saw rarely. Only this morning Emilie had thrown a hairbrush across the room at me for losing her butterfly hair clip. Stacy would never throw a hairbrush at her sisters—you could tell a thing like that just by looking at her. I wondered if there was some way I could trade Emilie for Stacy, as if they were playing cards.
    “So,” she said as she smiled, “how’s your family doing?”
    I thought about mentioning that Emilie was in trouble for cutting five inches off the hem of one of her skirts, but figured that probably wasn’t what Stacy wanted to hear. I took a deep breath and said, “I forgot to tell you last time. Johnny said I should say hi if I saw you.” It was surprising how easily the lie had come to me, and how smoothly the next one followed on its heels. “He said he would see you at the game on Tuesday.”
    “He did? Really?” She rocked backward on her heels and then straightened up, until she was standing at her full height. Her cheeks suddenly looked more pink, her tiny freckles like scattered grains of sand. I remembered what she had said: I don’t think he would notice a girl like me.
    “Really,” I said. It wasn’t a lie if it was said for the sake of politeness, right? Didn’t we always compliment Mom’s casseroles, even as we shifted the food around on our plates without eating it? Besides, to repeat the truth would be rude: She’s just some girl.
    Stacy grinned at me. “Well, tell him hi back.”
    “I will,” I promised.
    After she returned her book and left, smiling at me over her shoulder, I went to the checkout counter where Miss Elise, the librarian, was stamping books with a firm thud. “Can I check out that book?” I asked, pointing to the one Stacy had just returned.
    “What, this one?” Miss Elise said, holding up Pride and Prejudice. “Are you sure? Might be a little hard for you.”
    “I think I’m ready for it,” I said.
    She smiled, handing the book over, but she was right. I wasn’t ready for it; I gave up after the first page. But I liked knowing that Stacy had held this very book in her hands, that her fingers with the perfectly painted nails had turned these very pages.
    And, of course, I saw Stacy in the stands at every softball game for the rest of the Haybalers’ short season. At our second game, Stacy walked right up to where Mom and I were sitting, and I said, “Mom, this is Stacy Lemke. Remember, I was telling you about her?”
    “Of course,” Mom said smoothly, standing. They shook hands politely.
    “I go to school with Johnny,” Stacy explained.
    The Haybalers took