Bodies and Souls by Nancy Thayer

wallpaper, in spite of the fact that he had to take it out of his ownpocket, because he believed that his friends would pay him back when they could. But they did not pay him back. Some eventually took bankruptcy, some left town, and Judy’s father finally had to declare bankruptcy, too.
    Bankruptcy . The ugliest of words. Judy heard the word over and over again as she listened at the living-room door, which by this time was always closed when her parents were in there, as if they wanted to protect the rest of the house from a growing, pervasive contamination. Judy heard this ugly word, bankruptcy, and could envision it exactly: the rupturing of their lives, a mortal wound, a horrid tear that let all the money that made their lives beautiful spill out into the void, leaving them empty and desolate. Judy thought she would rather be dead than so suddenly poor.
    And the worst of it was that her parents had been such fools about it, such saps! She would never, ever, forgive them for their irresponsible set of values. They actually tried to live a life that conformed to the teachings of the Bible!
    Hiding at the crack in the living-room door, Judy would hear her mother speak: “Listen, Will, I’ve found the passage the minister read in church this morning.
    “ ‘Jesus said unto him, if thou wilt be perfect, go and sell what thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me. But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions.
    “ ‘Then said Jesus unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven.
    “ ‘And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.’ ”
    “But Mr. Watson is not POOR!” Judy would want to scream through the door. “Why can’t you see that? You’re not helping a poor man, you’re helping a rich man, and you’re hurting your own family!”
    But there was nothing she could do. She was only thirteen, and it was all so complicated, and it all happened so fast. In one year she witnessed a regular flowing away of all she loved, while her parents cried gently and reread the parable of the Eye of the Needle. Then, with a fluid continuity, things began to disappear from their lives: the silver, antiques, and finally the house were all sold. The vacations disappeared—and then so did the work.
    Judy’s father started off optimistically enough each day of that long bruised time. As she dressed for school, she would hear him whistling, and see him, clean and shavedand dapper, going out the front door. But when she returned from school in the afternoons, she would find her father lying on the living-room sofa, dressed in old slacks and a sweater, a newspaper hiding his face; he had sagged into the sofa with all the heavy passivity of a bum on a park bench.
    Judy could no longer bring friends home. And she was no longer invited to the homes of former friends. She had moved, away from the gracious section of town where her life had begun, and she was learning with cruel sharpness that life was not a stretch of prosperous pastures for everyone. Her friends were not mean to her. They did not taunt her. They just forgot her. They would swish by her in the halls at school, in their full skirts with cancan petticoats trimmed in matching material, and they would hardly take time to flash a quick smile and say hello. Judy felt stranded, estranged, diseased. She did not like the people her age in her new neighborhood; she had nothing in common with them, coming from such dissimilar backgrounds. Generally the kids in her new neighborhood were the dummies, the wise guys in her class. As the years went by, those kids grew tough and insolent and bold, fortified by their own company; they were the ones who taunted Judy. As the months passed and she showed no sign of wanting to become