A Thousand Miles

Part 15

Sometimes he cries.

    Rosa's words played through his mind again and again as Shane made the drive from Round Rock to Fredericksburg. Why did he cry? Did he believe in God now? Or did he hate hearing the so-called Word of God read to him when he was helpless and completely unable to stop it?

    Shane hadn't told Rosa not to read it to him anymore. She seemed intent, so certain that it was what his dad wanted to hear. And he didn't know what to do. He never asked about his dad's seeming loss of faith because he hadn't wanted to upset him. And after so many years, it faded from his mind and memory, at least until his near death experience with the football players, during which time his animosity toward God rose anew. Years passed, and it faded again, but now that it was suddenly a relevant subject again, the idea of God stirred something in him that felt new and old at the same time. Why had God taken his mother? Why had He nearly taken him? And now, why had an allegedly loving, heavenly Father incapacitated his earthly father, the very last person he had in this world, not taking him but rather leaving him in misery, imprisoned in a body he couldn't control?

    He expelled a long breath and raised a hand to rub the back of his neck. He'd have to think about all this later. He reached for the door handle and stepped out of his battered old pickup, eyeing the shiny black Escalade he just parked behind. He glanced up the street, noting three more just like it, only in different colors. JoLynn's weathered Suburban looked modest in comparison where it sat parked in the driveway beside the quaint little Sunday house to which his GPS had directed him.

    Curtis raised a hand in greeting from where he sat with Mel at a small, wrought iron table on the covered front porch.

    "What are y'all doing out here?"

    Curtis raised the cigarette he held, before taking a long drag from it.

    "Thought you quit." Shane stepped up onto the porch and leaned back against the railing.

    "I'll quit for sure tomorrow." Curtis drawled. "JoLynn's family is enough to drive a man to drink. So one little old cigarette ain't nothin'."

    Shane glanced at Mel who just shrugged and shook her head.

    "Oh, here y'all are!" JoLynn pushed the front screen door open and stepped out onto the porch. "Curtis!" She snatched the cigarette out of his hand just as he was about to raise it to his mouth again. "Where'd you get that?"

    "I bummed it off your little brother."

    She looked outraged as she crushed it out on a paper plate. "He's only sixteen!"

    "I didn't buy them for him. You should thank me for taking one off his hands."

    JoLynn expelled a completely disgusted sounding breath and rolled her eyes. Then she grinned a little. "Hi, Shane."

    "Howdy, Miss JoLynn."

    "Well, come on." She gathered up Curtis' and Mel's used paper plates, forks and napkins, then turned and pulled the screen door open. "Everyone wants to meet you. Especially Daddy's wife."

    "Yes, indeed." Curtis' raspy drawl followed them into the tiny house. "You must meet Daddy's wife."

    Shane followed JoLynn inside, feeling a little like an oddity about to be put on display. Or maybe like a lamb being led to the slaughter. Whatever. He could handle it.

The small parlor room was dark. But as his eyes adjusted to the lower light, the home's Victorian sensibility emerged. This was an honest to goodness Sunday house which had probably been here since the town was settled. The drop ceiling indicated the addition of upgrades at some point—central air, obviously. The narrow, lace adorned windows were not original, though someone had spent a lot of money making them look as if they could have been.