The She by Carol Plum-Ucci

Author:Carol Plum-Ucci [Plum-Ucci, Carol]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

THIRTEEN

Nobody said anything for the longest time. Then Grey muttered something about, "You're going to drown yourself in bodily fluids," and she had gotten a tissue and was actually wiping up my chin—spit, or maybe it was snot even. I guess they were waiting for me to say something, but I didn't want to cut up on Emmett. I could feel my brother's terror pulsing through my veins, and I remembered as a kid that he had had moments when he could believe in The She—even more than I had.

"Emmett, next time you hit your brother, your father's going to hold you down and I'm going to hit you. You understand?"

"I didn't hurt him, Mom! He just skeeves me out, always looking out that window at night, listening for spooks. He gets me so jumpy! It's disgusting!"

I wouldn't have gotten him jumpy over something he didn't believe in himself—at least at very tense moments.

"He did say not everything was in that book," I finally said, though it was hard to defend him for leaving out parts that would be personally embarrassing.

"I wouldn't call that omission a terrible thing, necessarily," Mr. Church said, quietly. "Maybe he felt guilty and ... stupid afterward. Those are hard emotions to write about, especially in light of his probable thought that he had lost valuable time, which might have saved them, when he panicked."

"Stupid..." My cackle sounded way crazed. Guess he never made that mistake again!

Church said nothing, but I could read some sort of victory sparkle in his eyes.

"He couldn't have saved them," I added quickly. "The Coast Guard can't beam up like on Star Trek."

"Is he convinced he couldn't save them?"

"Well, he's convinced they died off the Florida shoals after—" I stopped. Then I laughed more, taking the Lord's name in vain a few times. That kind of lets him off the hook, doesn't it?

But I was already shaking my head, already trying to disagree with myself. I couldn't get myself to believe my brother would ever fall victim to bad thinking. Especially not with Aunt Mel there looking after him.

"You know, you get me so turned around," I said to Mr. Church. "And I don't understand how you can sound so confident. You admitted a while ago that you sit out here and dream up these savvy little speeches you give."

He shrugged, and I wondered if it was even possible to make him feel insulted.

"But you've got nothing. Nothing. No mountain of facts, no evidence," I said.

"I'm sorry if I sound so sure, because I really don't know." Church faced out the window. "Except that I knew your mother and father I knew Connor Riley, too. They were apples and an orange. You put two sea captains together on the beach in a downtime game of Frisbee; sometimes they look so much alike. They're both laughing, playing jock, cursing like the seamen they are. But you know what I'm talking about. Some people, you see into them, you know they have a soul.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.