Текст книги "Equal Access"
Автор книги: A. E. Branson
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Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 18 страниц)
“But if you believe people shouldn’t get divorced, why don’t you just, you know, stop it?”
“I don’t have that power.” Shad wanted to spend less time explaining himself and more listening to Charissa, but he had to use his words to finish building this bridge between them. “Even God allows for divorce when someone breaks the covenant of marriage, and He Himself established that covenant.”
Charissa frowned as she looked at him. “God doesn’t like divorce.”
“I agree.” Again her statement lingered in his subconscious. “But God gave us free will, and due to the hardness of our hearts he gave us a way to escape a broken covenant.”
Charissa’s frown melted slightly into a more quizzical expression. “I don’t get it.”
“I don’t blame you.” Shad drew a deep breath as he tried to distill what his family had taught him. “You see, if we all followed God’s law, there would be no need for things like jail or even divorce. But God gave us the freedom to make choices, and some people choose to do what feels good at the moment instead of what God would want them to do. Some people choose to break their marriage vows and refuse to stop breaking the vows, which makes it actually better for their spouses to be away from them than to stay married to them. You see, the covenant is already broken. The divorce just makes it final, or at least that’s the way it’s supposed to be.”
Charissa’s gaze seemed to be directed at the door behind him. Several seconds passed before she responded.
“Who broke it?”
“What?”
Her gaze redirected to Shad. “Was it Mom or Dad who broke the coven-tent?”
Shad stared at her. He didn’t want to answer the question. Although he unequivocally placed the responsibility upon Demetri, Shad also didn’t want to alienate Charissa from her father. As cruel as the man could be, Demetri also exhibited warmth that Charissa could benefit from. If she had supervised visits with her father, Charissa would at least experience the best Demetri had to offer. Children needed fathers.
“It doesn’t matter,” Shad finally replied. “All that matters is that we’re gonna take care of you.”
Charissa’s gaze drifted back to the book but she didn’t really look at it. When she spoke, even Shad could recognize the sorrow in her voice.
“I know why you don’t wanna tell me. It’s why Mom’s dying, isn’t it?”
That feeling in his gut started to scramble like a frantic animal trying to escape. “What?”
“Mom broke the coven-tent. So God’s making her die.”
A different sensation of horror began seeping through him. “No. That’s not why she’s dying.” Shad also sensed that the unknown identity of the abuse that eluded him was drawing a little nearer, but it was still like a chink in the wall the animal couldn’t quite reach. “Is that what your dad told you?”
“Dad said ... he said she’s a slutty bitch that only thinks about herself. He said she wants me back just to be mean to us. He said she wants to get a divorce because that way you’ll make more money. And she’s mad at God for making her die.”
Shad stared speechless at the girl for many seconds as a chill crept through him. Language, one of those characteristics of humanity that separated us from the animals and was part of our likeness to God, escaped him as Shad considered the power of words.
God spoke, and the world became. Many Native American tribes concealed their children’s true names so that witches couldn’t use that knowledge to conjure curses against them. Celtic peoples believed that talented “poet-seers” could wreak havoc against kings by chanting satires about them. Among the Jews gossip was considered to be the verbal equivalent of murder. And Demetri Simms, using words filled with malice, made his daughter believe that her mother was a rebellious infidel who deserved to be struck down by a vengeful god.
Many people didn’t believe that verbal abuse was true abuse. Everyone knew the rhyme about sticks and stones. But verbal abuse wasn’t the kind of banter that Karl and Jill sometimes traded. Insidious on its own, it was also the foundation for other expressions of abuse. Shad would have dared anybody to sit in the same room with him right now and deny that words had the power to maim and even kill.
“That’s not true.” Those were the only words he could finally think of.
“It has to be.” Charissa gazed at her book. “And if I don’t make you stop the divorce, something bad will happen to me, too.”
So that was it. Demetri had threatened her. He had placed adult responsibility on the small girl’s shoulders and then warned of dire consequences if she didn’t succeed. In that one statement Shad found himself beginning to understand Charissa’s behavior and other things she’d said.
He found words came more readily now. “Your dad can’t hurt you. I’ll see to it you’re never left alone with him again.”
“Not Dad.” Charissa shook her head. “God will do it. He’ll make something bad happen to me. Like how He’s making Mom die.” Her expression was somber again as she looked at Shad. “You can’t keep God away from me.”
Shad’s breath seemed to become thin as though somebody had knocked the wind out of him. He remembered something else about Demetri Simms. Monica admitted that in high school and shortly afterwards she had been a “wild child” who partied with friends because it was usually how she could get her father’s attention. When her own mother suddenly died of a bacterial infection, Monica decided to turn her life around, which included a new routine of attending church. That was where she met Demetri, and Monica believed she’d found her dream man. He was handsome, athletic, intelligent, fun-loving ... and devout. How could she go wrong with someone who was so obviously pious and still willing to overlook her former transgressions?
“I don’t want to keep God away from you,” he replied. “God is your protection, not your adversary. He isn’t gonna punish you, and He isn’t punishing your mom.”
Charissa frowned again, but sadness still lingered on her. “Dad said He is. But you can’t say why she’s dying.”
“God does things we don’t understand. But my parents taught me that when bad things happen, that gives people the chance to do something good. And every time people do something good, they’re fulfilling God’s will. And every time God’s will is fulfilled, that’s a miracle. So every time something bad happens, it gives us the chance to perform miracles.”
“Only the doctors can give Mom a miracle.”
“That’s not true.” Shad shook his head. “Your mom loves you with all her heart and soul, and so for her it’s a miracle that your Uncle Eliot and Aunt Tess are going to bring you into their home when she does finally pass away. It’s a miracle to her that somebody will take care of you when she can no longer do it herself.”
Charissa shook her head in return. “That’s not a miracle.”
“Yes, it is.” Shad leaded forward. “I’m gonna tell you a story I’ve read about. Do you remember the part in the Bible where Moses leads the Hebrews out of Egypt, and God parts the waters of the Red Sea so they can escape from Pharoah’s army?”
Charissa nodded slightly.
“As the people of Israel are walking between the two walls of water on either side of them, they gaze at those walls in amazement – except for two men. Those two men keep looking down at the mud they’re walking through, and complaining to each other how it reminds them of the mud they used to make into bricks while they were slaves in Egypt. There they are in the middle of perhaps the most famous miracle ever known, and they don’t see it. Miracles are no different today. We’ve just got to see them.” Shad leveled his gaze on her. “People who love you want to take care of you. That in itself is always a miracle.”
Charissa shook her head. “That’s the way things are supposed to be.”
Shad stared at her. “You’re exactly right. But the way things are supposed to be is not always the way things are. We broke the world and now it’s up to us to repair it. We have to put things back the way they’re supposed to be.”
“But only babies are supposed to be adopted.”
“That’s not true. I was eleven years old before I was adopted.”
It was Charissa’s turn to stare at Shad, and when she spoke her tone was almost hushed. “You’re adopted?”
“When I was even older than you. And still I didn’t wind up with three heads and seven eyeballs.”
Charissa almost smiled. But then her lips pursed downward and she lowered her attention to the book in her lap.
“I don’t know when I can believe you.”
Her words hit Shad like a right cross from out of the blue. “I’m sorry about the firing thing. I wasn’t trying to lie. I was just trying to help you feel better.”
“Dad’s lied to me, too.”
His analytical side couldn’t leave that statement untouched. “How?”
“He promised me we would go to a special park where I could go on a pony ride. A real live pony. He said we would go after lunch. Lunch was over, and he wasn’t ready to go. He kept working on his sound system. I asked him when we would go and he kept saying later. Then he got mad and said if I didn’t stop asking, we wouldn’t go at all. I stopped asking.” Charissa’s fingers lightly tapped the pages of the book. “We still never went.”
Shad was thoroughly familiar with that type of episode. “I’m sorry that happened to you. I know it was very disappointing.”
“At bedtime I asked him if we could go the next day. He got mad again. He said ... he said I was acting like Mom. Always wanting stuff. That if I didn’t stop acting like her I was gonna wind up dead, just like her....” Charissa’s voice trailed off.
A few memories tried to clamor to the surface of his thoughts, but Shad pushed them back into the depths. “That’s not gonna happen. You’re a very special person. And your Mom is very nice.” The analytical ego still hadn’t retreated. “Your Dad usually says things like that whenever he gets mad, doesn’t he?”
“I don’t like it when he’s mad.” Charissa’s voice was beginning to squeak. “I try to be good. I really do. But I just can’t be good enough –” Her voice cracked.
Shad felt himself leaning toward her. “It’s not your fault.”
“If I could be good enough – he won’t get mad anymore.”
“You’re good enough, Charissa. You’re very good. He’s the one who’s broken, not you. Nobody can ever be good enough to keep him from getting mad.”
“And if you don’t stop the divorce –” Charissa’s voice cracked again. “– I wasn’t good –”
A sound like a strangled hiccup erupted from her, and Charissa’s hands flew to her face as soft sobs shook her shoulders. Before Shad even realized what he’d done he scrambled across the room, pushed a pile of dolls and stuffed animals out of the way, and sat beside Charissa as he placed his left hand on her back between her shoulder blades.
“It’s alright,” Shad muttered as he gently patted her with outspread fingers. “You’re gonna be okay.”
Charissa shook her head slightly as she continued to weep into her hands.
“You’re a good kid and nothing bad’s gonna happen to you. You’re going through tough times right now, I know, and that’s bad enough. But nothing really bad is gonna happen to you.”
She began to sniffle and wipe at her nose. Shad removed his hand from her back and pulled a folded, plain white handkerchief from his left slacks pocket. He silently thanked Pap for having ingrained the habit in him to always carry a handkerchief and a pocket knife.
“Here.” Shad shook the cloth open and handed it to her.
Charissa took the handkerchief and wiped at her face. When she tried to give it back to him, Shad motioned for her to keep it.
“You might need that for a while.”
“I’m ... I’m supposed to tell you ... I don’t want Mom and Dad to get a divorce. And I don’t.” Charissa blew her nose into the handkerchief. “But Mom’s dying. And Dad –” Her voice cracked. “I want my dad ... when he’s not mad. If I would be good enough –” Charissa took another shuddering breath. “He just gets mad when I’m not good. I want my dad –” Her voice cracked again. “But I want my mom, too!”
Shad blew out a slow exhale as he began to softly pat her on the back again. “You can’t stop your dad from getting mad. That’s why it’s better for Uncle Eliot and Aunt Tess to adopt you.”
Charissa wiped at her nose as she hiccupped again. “They’re not just being mean to Dad?”
“No. They love you and they want to do what’s best for you.”
She sniffled into the handkerchief for several seconds before speaking again, and Charissa’s voice was less tremulous. “Did your mom die, too?”
He shook his head. “Remember when we were talking about people who are supposed to love you and take care of you? The woman they adopted me from, she wasn’t like that. She didn’t take care of me.”
“What about your dad?”
Shad drew a deep breath and slowly exhaled as he found the words to explain his situation. “I never knew him. He left us before I was born.”
Charissa frowned slightly. “So when you said your parents told you about miracles, you were talking about the people who adopted you?”
“They’re the only real parents I ever had.” Shad smiled. “And you know what? They didn’t just tell me about miracles. They showed me miracles by teaching me how to see them. And one of the biggest miracles I’ve seen was when they adopted me. Actually, I think all adoptions are miracles.”
Charissa twisted a corner of the handkerchief around the tip of her index finger. “I already have real parents.”
“I know.” Shad sighed. The idea that suddenly hit him renewed his encouragement. “That makes you lucky, you know. What a blessing it must be to have not only natural parents, but also have people who love you and take care of you even when your natural parents can’t. You can give them special names if you want, because they’re special people to you. You know what I call my parents? Mam and Pap.”
“Mam and Pap?” A faint hint of a smile trembled on her lips. “Those are funny names.”
“My mom, Mam, came up with the idea. Since I was so old when they adopted me, they thought I might not feel right calling them Mom and Dad, so they asked if I wanted to call them Mam and Pap.” Shad smiled again. “Maybe one day, at the time it feels right to you, you’ll want to call Uncle Eliot and Aunt Tess by different names.”
Charissa looked down at the handkerchief she grasped. “I want to believe you when you say things like that.”
“I’m really, really sorry I said you could fire me. If it will make you feel better, just burn that hanky when you’re done with it. While you’re at it, burn this tie, too. And my socks. No, maybe you’d better hold off on those. Might release too many toxic fumes.”
A peep escaped from her. Shad wasn’t sure if Charissa had laughed slightly or was starting to cry again. But when she returned her gaze to his face there was a little more of a smile on her lips.
“You remind me of Dad when he’s nice.”
Shad stopped patting her back. He wasn’t entirely sure how to take that comment.
“Except Dad never said he was sorry.” Charissa leaned against him and her head rested under his left shoulder.
“I’m just a sorry son of a gun,” Shad muttered. Her proximity to him was beginning to sink in. And there was an eerily familiar sensation stirring in his core.
“Do you mean it, Mr. Delaney?” Charissa wrapped her arms around his left thigh. “Nothing bad is gonna happen to me?”
That despicable longing ache unfolded within him as Shad became acutely aware of every point of contact she was making with him. The poor child was reaching out to him because she saw Shad as one of the few people who might actually fulfill her needs, and that was exactly what the demon within him wanted to take advantage of.
“I’ll do everything in my power to keep anything worse from happening to you.” Shad’s voice was a bit hoarse as he decided to end this session as quickly but delicately as possible.
“You’re not gonna tell Mom, are you?”
“I have to.”
“Don’t.” Charissa sat up to look at him but left her arms around his leg. “She’ll think ... I’m bad.”
“Charissa.” Shad managed to keep his voice steady as his empathy for the girl struggled with a less noble impulse. “I’m not gonna keep a secret from your mom. She’s your mom. Part of being a parent is ...” Shad tried to come up with something a little less colorful than Pap or Karl would say. “... you’d face down the devil himself to do what’s right for your child. The things we’ve talked about might hurt your mom’s feelings, but she’d rather have her feelings hurt than let anything happen to hurt you. She loves you. Nothing’s gonna change that.”
Charissa studied his face. “It would make me feel better if you didn’t tell Mom.”
If he were an actual molester, this would have been a dream come true. Her maneuver was a perfect setup to establish a “secret” between them. Charissa might as well have been gift-wrapped for him.
Gift-wrapped ... gift ... a gift from God ... Dulsie.
His resolve not to give in to temptation just got its reinforcements. “You don’t keep secrets from your parents.”
She frowned slightly. “Even if it’s a surprise?”
“What surprise?”
“Vic is gonna take us to his friend Drake’s houseboat one day. But he said not to tell Mom because it was a surprise.” Charissa’s face brightened. “I’ll get to ride in a boat.”
“Then that’s different.” Shad removed his hand from her shoulder. He felt as though there were two dueling forces within him. For the moment they seemed evenly matched but he wasn’t sure how long that would last. He placed his hand over Charissa’s wrist but didn’t immediately move her arm. “Thank you for talking to me about this, Charissa. It will help me to help you.”
“Do you have to go now?”
Shad moved Charissa’s arm to her side and released it. “I have to. I ... have other clients I have to see.”
“Can I talk to you again?”
Shad hesitated in the process of getting to his feet. His side of light urged caution while the demon was intrigued by her question. “If you want to tell me more ... to build my case, sure.” He didn’t look at Charissa while he stood, but then glanced down at the child with an expression Shad was certain to be grave. “Remember, though, about your mom. No secrets.”
Charissa frowned slightly as she gazed up at him, then with a sigh she returned her attention to her book.
As Shad turned to leave the room his memory dredged up various aspersions the boyfriends had used against him. Only this time Shad used the most hateful remarks he could think of against himself.
Chapter Eleven
Great is peace, seeing that for its sake even God modified the truth.
–Babylonian Talmud
To this day Shad didn’t trust anybody immediately. Before he turned eleven, Shad assumed anybody who made pretensions of friendship toward him would either try to take advantage of him or decide he was unlikable and mistreat him. When Erin began visiting with him at the library, Shad believed she would figure out he was a twerp and quickly distance herself from him.
So when Erin started giving him food, Shad got a little confused. He definitely appreciated the sandwiches and fruits and vegetables she would hand to him, but Shad told himself Erin had to have an ulterior motive. One evening she showed him pictures of her parents and of the farm where she grew up, and then asked Shad if he would like to go there for a week. Shad figured something terrible would happen to him if he went, but just the night before Brody had launched a particularly vicious attack on him, so Shad decided he could either be killed by Brody or killed by strangers. At that point in time discomfort of the unknown became actually preferable to the pain of the familiar. He chose to go to the strangers.
So that woman sent him off with this person she didn’t even know, and Shad was a little surprised when he actually arrived at a real farm. Erin had to go back to St. Louis after the weekend, but every night during the remainder of the week she would call and chat with him on the phone. Every day Shad did wonder when Erin’s parents, especially Mr. Delaney, would turn on him and do something like slice open his throat the way Mrs. Delaney and her sister did with those chickens on the third day of his visit. When on the fifth day they asked Shad if he wanted to stay longer, like for the duration of summer vacation, Shad took that as a sign he was doomed. But he replied in the affirmative because Shad figured his fate was sealed, and until they actually did him in life wasn’t so bad. Besides, he still didn’t want to return to Brody.
Erin’s contact with him became less frequent but remained steady and dependable. It took nearly a year before Shad decided that these people he started calling Mam and Pap could actually be trusted, but he also developed a solid anchor of respect for Erin. When he could finally take his new lifestyle for granted, Shad never forgot it was Erin’s intervention that had brought him here.
It wasn’t until after Pap’s hospital stay that Shad learned how divine that intervention had really been.
When he got up from bed that Saturday morning, Shad told himself to be cheerful. He was always glad to see Erin again, especially since her younger sister Iona had a friendly, but not as close, relationship with him. Shad had moved in on the heels of Iona’s move out to begin college early, so he never got to know her as well as the rest of the family.
Erin and her husband Stan had two children and lived in the Rolla area, about an hour south of Jefferson City. Stan was an instructor at the university and Erin was still a librarian. Their son, Grady, was ten years old, and they had a daughter, Ida, who was six. They were coming out to visit this weekend since they had spent the Fourth of July weekend with Stan’s family. As Shad got dressed in chino shorts and a light green, button-down shirt, he thought again how there was a certain convenience to his and Dulsie’s families being so close.
Around mid-morning Dulsie drove to the Delaney farm after Mam telephoned to tell them Erin’s family had arrived. The farm was located on yet another back road, and the driveway that led up toward the house was about half the length of the Wekenheiser’s driveway, but it was still considered long. The land was a mix of crops, timber and pasture in a patchwork quilt pattern on river bottom and hills. The Osage River, outsized in this state only by the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, created a physical border on the back side of the farm. On the hills at the front of the property sat the house and various outbuildings: garden shed, chicken coop, well house, granary, machine barn, and most impressively the enormous timber frame barn. Although the exterior of the barn was covered with sheet metal to protect the over one-hundred-year-old oak planks, the interior was all wood and dirt and hay with a ground-floor plan that accommodated horse stalls and milking stanchions for an era long ago.
The two-story house was the second largest building on the farm but shared the barn’s venerable age. Like many of the older homes in the area the house sported a corrugated steel roof that had weathered to a dull gray. It was a roughly T-shaped building, although the lower floor had an additional room on either side of the back wing. Its newer but still older-looking clapboard style siding was a soft wedgewood blue and the railing that graced the semi-wraparound porch and the trim around the windows were white with red accents. At the beginning of World War II, in a fit of patriotic fervor, Pap’s Grandpa Ward originally applied the red paint to sections of the columns on the porch and the windows, and Pap felt duty-bound to keep it maintained.
The silver, mid-sized SUV parked near the faded green Delaney pickup belonged to Erin and her husband Stan. After Dulsie parked their own car near the other vehicles, Shad helped her carry the food they’d brought toward the porch. No sooner did they reach the front steps than the two kids raced around the corner from the other side of the house. Mam’s and Pap’s two dogs, one that resembled a border collie except its coat was uniformly red, and the other a beagle, were gleefully running alongside them.
Ida almost bumped into Dulsie as the girl sprinted up the concrete steps and grasped the first column on the right when she reached the short distance to the top.
“Safe!” Ida gasped as she hugged to the post. Then she grinned at the adults. “Hi Uncle Shad! Hi Aunt Dulsie!”
“Ida cheated!” Grady was more winded and he grasped the railing that bordered the steps. A brown-haired boy with his grandmother’s – and mother’s – green eyes, Grady was wearing denim shorts and a blue tee shirt with a Chinook helicopter pictured on the front.
Both Dulsie and Shad greeted the kids. Then Dulsie spoke again. “Ida has to cheat. She’s younger than you.”
“No she doesn’t.” Grady frowned up at his sister. “Mom told me not to run as fast as I really can.”
The dogs sniffed around Shad’s and Dulsie’s feet, but neither patted the animals because their hands were full with boxes or bags. Ida continued to hug the post as though her well-being depended on it.
“Bull hockey!” Ida replied. She was also wearing denim shorts but her tee shirt was green with white stripes. Her dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail and her eyes were brown. “You still run fast.”
Shad regarded Ida with false seriousness. “Does your mom know you use that kind of language?”
“Hockey isn’t a swear word,” Ida replied earnestly.
“Do you know what it means?” Shad asked.
“Poop!” Grady blurted.
Dulsie smiled. “Really? I thought it was a game you play on ice with sticks and a puck. Or is that hooky?”
“Hooky’s skipping school.” Ida grinned.
“Do either of you ever play hooky?” Shad maintained his demeanor as he glanced at both kids.
“Ida does!” Grady looked at his sister.
She gazed down on her brother in defiance. “Bull hockey!”
They finally made it past the kids and into the house where Mam and Pap were visiting with Erin and Stan in the living room. Shad and Dulsie took the food to the large dine-in kitchen that spanned the width of the home before Shad was able to hug Erin and shake hands with Stan while Dulsie hugged both. Their visit didn’t last long because both kids burst into the house and reminded everybody they were supposed to go fishing after Uncle Shad and Aunt Dulsie arrived.
So Pap loaded fishing poles, tackle boxes and a small cooler full of dirt and earthworms into the bed of his pickup. Behind the barn and next to the woods bordering the pasture was a three-acre fishing pond that Shad had always known as a sure source to catch bluegill, bass, or catfish every outing. They did fill a stringer which Mam said they could fry for supper that night, and then the kids wanted to go out in Pap’s two canoes he kept in a shed on one side of the pond bank. Shad and Grady went out in one canoe and Pap took Ida in the other.
Then it was time for lunch, and Jill and Karl, also bearing food, arrived at the home. In the kitchen everybody sat at the large oak table which Quaid himself had built from lumber produced on the very farm he had saved for Grace. It was just large enough to accommodate all ten of them, although the kids had to sit in wooden folding chairs. Pap and Mam took opposite ends of the table, while Shad, Dulsie, Stan and Erin sat on one side. Grady, Ida, Karl and Jill filled the other side.
About fifteen minutes into the meal and conversation, Ida asked in a clear voice, “Why is everything around here so old?”
The adults chuckled and Erin replied, “It’s an old house.”
At first glance people might think Erin looked like Jill because they both had dark hair and green eyes. It was actually Pap’s side of the family whom Erin favored however, including the Delaney height which made her the tallest woman in the family. She also had on denim shorts and wore a red button-down blouse.
“It is like coming to a museum.” Grady looked around at the yellow pine floors, natural black walnut trim, and white bead board ceiling. “Even your TV is old.”
“It still works.” Pap smirked.
“Do you even have a computer?” Grady asked.
“Thanks to your Uncle Shad, I do.”
Shad cast a glance toward his nephew. “It’s a dinosaur.”
“How come you don’t have email?”
“We got rid of all that internet stuff after Shad moved out.”
“How come?”
Pap smirked again. “Because Shad moved out.”
Mam chuckled. “If Grandpa can’t fix it with a wrench or a welder then he figures it’s not worth having.”
“I think your grandpa’s on to something there.” Karl leaned forward. “My truck’s not so new, either, but it’s still got computer chips and high-tech gizmos that keep me from just fixing it with a wrench. Most of that stuff is probably surveillance equipment for the government to keep tabs on us.”
Most of the adults smirked because they knew Karl got a kick out of conspiracy theories. Jill just shook her head.
“All those computer components are supposed to be there to make your truck safer to drive.” Stan shrugged. His hair was not as dark as Erin’s and he had brown eyes. Like everybody else he was wearing shorts, and the polo shirt he wore was blue.
“Safer?” Karl jabbed a thumb toward his daughter. “Shad and Dulsie can’t even buy a used car these days without it having airbags all over it. But they have to turn around and get the airbags disabled because those things could kill Dulsie. No, the government is sticking its nose more and more into our business.” He suddenly twitched and then looked at Jill beside him. “Hey, that one hurt.”
“You know how to stop those,” Jill replied nonchalantly.
“Kinda like the joke about what’s the difference between a politician and God.” Dulsie had come by her Weisenheimer nickname honestly. “God doesn’t think he’s a politician.”
“I thought that was a lawyer and God,” Shad muttered.
“You know what they say about the End Times.” Karl wagged a finger at everybody else at the table. “Religion will be replaced by a man-made institution. And the government will impose more laws because people won’t restrain themselves anymore.” His attention suddenly snapped to Jill. “Would you cut that out?”
“Don’t give me any ideas,” Jill murmured.
“You know.” Karl pointed a finger directly at her. “That’s exactly the kind of suppression of freedom I was just talking about.”
