Meet Me Halfway by Jennifer Morales

Author:Jennifer Morales
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-299-30363-1
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
Published: 2014-11-22T00:00:00+00:00

Stu thought that would be enough. Students were going up and down the aisle, to and from the stage. During the next outburst of applause, he made his way up to the front row, where he saw Leonard sitting with a woman with a face so afflicted and lost that Stu knew with one look that she was Johnquell’s mother.

Leonard saw him and extended his hand. “Are you leaving?” Leonard had been crying and the whites of his eyes were streaked with red.

Stu bent in close to say, “Yes, I wanted to leave this with you though. It’s some of Johnquell’s schoolwork.”

Beneath the applause and the sounds of crying, Leonard leaned into Johnquell’s mother to say, “One of Johnquell’s teachers.” She looked up at Stu with interest and held out her hand, then withdrew it.

“You’re the substitute,” she said. Her voice was cold and scratchy.

“I’m very sorry …,” Stu began.

“I bet you are,” she said, turning herself in the pew until she was facing the stage.

“… for your loss,” Stu finished.

Leonard looked from Stu to Johnquell’s mother and back again, but she kept her eyes on the stage.

“Thank you for coming,” she said, without looking up.

Stu couldn’t believe it. He hardly knew the boy but he had made the effort to be here, to honor her son’s life, and she was dismissing him like a misbehaving student. He stood there a moment longer, but Johnquell’s mother kept her eyes on the stage where three girls were getting ready to sing a song.

He turned away. Outside would be his battered car and the rest of a Saturday to do what he liked. As Stu made his way to the back of the church, he could hear one of the girls start up, her young voice strong enough to reach him even at the door.

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