Theft by Rachel Ingalls

Author:Rachel Ingalls [Rachel Ingalls]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780571299775
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2013-10-14T04:00:00+00:00

“Will you quit looking at me like that?” he said.

“Just looking.”

“She’ll get over it. It don’t mean a thing. Just keep her so mad she won’t have time to think about anybody else till I get out.”

I said, “You know if anything happened to you she’d kill herself.”

“Maybe.”

“You know she would. Maddie’s the one would get married again.”

“You think so?”

I’d never thought about it before but now it seemed like I’d known all the time.

“Sure, and I’d want her to. If anything happened to her, I’d get married to somebody else again too. Not right away, but I would. I couldn’t live alone like that. And neither could she. It would be worse for her—I’d want her to get married again. How’d she live with two kids and no man in the house? It’s bad enough you’d have the grief, why should she be unhappy too?”

“You wouldn’t be jealous?”

“What do you mean, jealous? I’d be dead. But I’d like to know she’s all right. I’d like her to get married again to somebody would make her happy.”

“You mean you’d want her to love some other man? Really, like she loves you now?”

“Yes, I would. After I’m dead.” I wouldn’t want to leave somebody and have the world turn black and be dead to them whenever they think of me not being there. Much better if they think of me kindly and know I want them to be happy. For the children, too. Isn’t that love?

Jake said, “Well, you don’t know what it is. My, I feel like I’d be jealous even after I was dead.”

“That’s why she wouldn’t be able to go on afterwards,” I told him. “You wouldn’t either. Think about it. What would you do if anything happened to Annie?”

“I don’t want to think about it. I don’t know.”

Homer came in with his keys and began to unlock one of the middle cells.

“She is pretty, very,” he said. “Lots of what you call it? Temperament. We got girls like that at home.”

“You got everything back there,” Jake said.

“Sure. I have a cousin like that a long time ago. You say something and her eyes flash and she tell you to go to hell. Then she wait till everybody leave her alone and she cries, cry like she will die. Is pride, is wonderful in a woman.”

“You know all about that too?” Jake said.

“Two years ago, three years ago—well. Now I am feeling old. Is the job, maybe.” He went over to the other middle cell and unlocked that one too so the doors stood open.

Jake said, “Is there anything you don’t have over there in Greece? By my count you invented poetry, politics, philosophy, women. What else is there you don’t have?”

“Money,” Homer said.

“How about religion, did you start that too?”

“You very religious?”

Jake laughed. I heard shouts out in the passage and stamping feet and a roar of people coming closer. And then an armed guard burst through the entranceway, about seven of them, and they were dragging eight or nine people with them.

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