We So Seldom Look on Love Read Online Free

been dazed, suddenly, by a recollection of the woman who knelt over the cat that fell from the balcony, by a recollection of the woman’s black-and-white dress, exactly like her mother’s. She reasons that the woman was in jail before and is now out.
    “Okie dokie?” Aunt Bea says.
    Julie covers her mouth with both hands, the way the woman did.
    “Okie dokie,” Aunt Bea answers for her.
    In the middle of the sermon Aunt Bea is visited by the notion that the reason Julie calls Terry “Penny” might be that somebody, her educated mother for instance, told her about the pennies that used to be put on the eyes of the dead who, of course, can no longer see.
    She gives Julie a ruminating look. Julie looks blankly back at her and begins to jerk. Before Aunt Bea understands what is happening, she kicks the pew. She swings her arm and knocks Aunt Bea’s glasses off.
    “Stop it!” Terry says to Julie. Aunt Bea’s glasses have landed in her lap. She holds them over Julie, who has gone stiff and is slipping off the pew. Aunt Bea snatches her glasses back. “She’s pretending!” Terry says. “She’s jealous.”
    “Shush!” Aunt Bea snaps. Julie begins jerking again. Aunt Bea pours out the contents of her purse but she can’t find the pencil. Finally she shoves a hymnal into Julie’s mouth, then throws her leg up and over Julie’s to stop her kicking the pew, at which point she becomes aware that Hazel Gordimer is leading Terry into the aisle, and that Tom Alcorn, the minister, is asking if there’s a doctor in the congregation.
    “It’s all right,” Aunt Bea calls out. “This happens all the time! It’ll be over in a jiffy!” She smiles at the stricken faces turned toward her. She knows it looks worse than it is. Luckily, though, it’s a short fit. With a mighty heave, Julie relaxes her body, and Aunt Bea calls out to Tom Alcorn, “All finished! You can carry on now!” She looks around for Terry, but she’s not there—Hazel must have taken her outside. So she throws everything back in her purse, tugs the hymnal from Julie’s mouth and coaxes her to her feet. “Sorry,” she says to the people along the pew. “Thank you so much,” she says, referring to their prayers for Terry.
    The last man in the aisle, a big man about her age, takes her arm and walks her and Julie to the back of the church. In the silence can be heard, clear as a bell, the Sunday school childrendown in the basement singing “All Things Bright and Beautiful.” Normally, Terry and Julie would be down there, but the topic of this Sunday’s service, “Suffer Little Children,” was dedicated to Terry, and Aunt Bea wanted her to hear it. Well, she heard most of it. She heard her name mentioned in two prayers. Aunt Bea runs a hand over her pounding forehead, and the man, whose name she wishes she could remember, gives her arm a squeeze. Oh, the consolation of big, church-going men! Aunt Bea allows herself to lean into him a little. Julie leans into her. Aunt Bea looks down at her and sees what she knows in her bones is a smile.
    At the door the man draws his arm away, and the three of them go outside and descend the steps toward Hazel Gordimer and Terry. Terry’s eyelids are pink from crying. Suddenly Aunt Bea can’t bear it that those tender lids will feel the scalpel. Letting go of one child, she goes up to the other and hugs her.
    “She didn’t make the sink-draining noise,” Terry says coldly. “She always makes it first.”
    Aunt Bea is unable to recall whether Julie made that noise or not. “It was bad timing, I’ll grant you that,” she says. Terry wrenches free and begins to sweep the sidewalk with her cane. “Where are you going?” Aunt Bea asks. Terry approaches the man, who makes way, and then Julie, who doesn’t. Terry has anticipated this, however, and she steps onto the grass one sweep before her cane would have touched Julie’s shoe.
    “Bastard,” Julie murmurs.
    “I
heard
that!” Terry says. At the