Drowning of Stephan Jones Read Online Free

ridiculed. Why, oh why would the lady and Mr. Harris want to talk that ugly way to living, breathing human beings? Did they only feel big by making others feel small? Or were they blinded by their own self-righteousness?
    There was something else engraved on her heart, and that was a sense of disappointment in herself. Somehow, out in the cold in front of the hardware store he had recognized her trepidation. He’d risked rejection to whisper encouragement in her ear. He had come to her rescue when she was alone. But she hadn’t come to his. Why hadn’t she done something, said anything, to help them? One thing she knew for sure—she was completely unworthy of being called Judith Wayland’s daughter. But she wasn’t involved, so what could she really do? ButCarla knew her mother would never have to ask that question. Judith seemed to have come into this world knowing exactly what she should do and why she should do it. No, Judith Wayland would never sit on her hands, or on her heart, while witnessing an injustice.
    Carla felt her face flush and guessed that her temperature was soaring to heights that no ordinary thermometer could ever hope to follow.
    Suddenly Carla snatched up the package of miniature Christmas tree lights and headed for the cashier’s counter as though it were her express ticket out of there. How good the fresh air would feel, cooling the temperature that raged within her body. As she slid the package across the counter, she noticed that the brawny merchant’s complexion had pretty much returned to its normal color. “Well, well, who are you buying the lights for, Carla?” He sounded surprisingly good-natured and calm now.
    The answer to his question seemed clearly self-evident, and Carla wondered if he wasn’t trying to redeem his reputation as a good guy after the inhuman way he’d treated those men. More likely, it was just his idea of small talk. “It’s for us, Mother and me.” But when that didn’t seem to entirely satisfy him, she felt called upon to add, “For our Christmas tree.”
    Her predictable answer appeared to stun the merchant. “Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle—your momma know what you’re doing?”
    Could there be something about Christmas lights that she didn’t understand? she wondered. Could they be a little dangerous, maybe needing special handling, a little like fireworks? “Well, yes sir,” she answered, feeling vaguely humiliated. She handed the merchant a neatly folded ten-dollar bill. “This is the money my mother gave me to buy Christmas tree decorations.”
    Mr. Harris cocked his large head to one side as though hewere checking to make sure she was telling the truth. “You know something? That surprises me, sugar, it really does—especially when you take into account all the whooping and hollering your mother did a couple of years back when Rachetville tried putting our own creche in front of our own city hall! And on our town’s very own property at that! Well, behavior like that might be just the ticket with some of those free-loading, nuts-and-berries free spirits in Parson Springs, but that kind of stuff doesn’t go in this town!”
    Carla’s head drooped against her chest the way the challenger’s did when the champ had landed his killer punch against the poor guy’s midsection in Saturday night’s Television Fight of the Week. But unlike the luckless challenger, who remained flat-out on the canvas, her head rose slowly up, up, up again, almost level with Mr. Harris’s eyes.
    Sticking up for Judith had, over the years, become almost automatic. Never, never pleasurable, but still and all, automatic. “What my mother attempted to do,” she explained slowly, giving each word a kind of resonating importance, “was to fight for the Constitution of the United States of America, and for what it says in there about the separation of church and state.”
    “You gotta be kidding! Think our Constitution needs help from your mother? Well, I