Where Mercy Flows by Karen Harter Page B

just going to get out here, okay?”
    “Why?”
    “I’m not in the mood to talk to anybody.” He shook his head and started to put the truck back into gear. “I
am
a little drunk,” I finally admitted, “and I don’t want TJ to see me like this. If you let me off here, I can just sneak in
     the back door without anyone hearing me come home.” Warm light glowed from most of the windows, but I knew my mother would
     never have let TJ stay up past nine o’clock.
    He studied me suspiciously for a moment before succumbing. “Okay. You’re a grown woman. I guess I don’t have to check you
     back in like a library book.”
    I slid out on my side and crossed over to his open window. Neither of us knew our next lines. We just stared at each other
     for a moment. “Thanks, Donnie.”
    His face broke into a grin; he winked and shoved the truck into reverse. I watched him back all the way to the street before
     I climbed between the fence rails and headed across the field toward the barn.

8
    T HE GRASS in my parents’ field was long and cool, but not long enough to cut. No one in the valley ever mowed their hay until
     after the Fourth of July. I saw my mother’s shape cross the living room to turn off a lamp. Hopefully they would turn in soon
     and so could I. Mom had been fine with watching TJ when I told her I needed to get out for a while, but it had not occurred
     to me when I slipped into Fraser’s Tavern that I would be gone so long. I felt a twinge of guilt for not phoning. My foot
     sank into a rat hole, sending me sprawling on the dew-laden grass. The earth smelled of the summers of about a hundred years
     ago when my biggest worry was whether my creamed peas would be discovered in the spider plant. I rolled onto my back and relaxed,
     almost oblivious to the grass clump poking my kidneys, which was one of the advantages of being plastered. A dark blanket
     of sky with starry lint fell over me and there was silence except for the lazy sounds of the river and an owl hooting in the
     cottonwood grove.
    The nausea had passed with the freight train, but the ever-present laboring in my chest still nagged ominously like snapping
     branches in the darkness beyond a campfire. I had tried to ignore it all day. Lindsey had come by that morning with frozen
     raspberries from last year’s garden. She made a happy face with them on TJ’s cereal and then she and I took our coffee onto
     the deck. Mom had gone into town with the Judge and wouldn’t be back until afternoon. Maybe that was why Lindsey was there.
     I felt watched ever since the night of the 911 call. Mom or Lindsey was always taking TJ off my hands, or asking if I didn’t
     want a sweater or something. I hated that.
    Personally, I found most sick people very unattractive. No one knows what to say to them except, “How are you feeling today?”
     which of course is a big mistake, especially if it’s Aunt Lilse you’re asking. She used to go on about things you really didn’t
     want to hear, like how she had diarrhea all last week and now she can’t eat anything but Cream of Wheat. The worst part was
     when she pulled up her pant leg and made you look at how swollen her legs were. Her blue veins had as many tributaries as
     the Amazon and her legs just looked fat to me. Other sick people, who are not in it for the pure pleasure of depressing their
     loved ones, you just feel sorry for and you hope nothing scary or disgusting happens while you’re visiting them.
    I certainly didn’t want it getting out that I had a slushy heart. It didn’t suit my image. What if Donnie had known tonight?
     He probably would have driven me home and delivered me to my mother by eight p.m. Out of pity or guilt he might stop off later
     with flowers or send a card and that would be the end of that.
    I remembered the cigarettes in my pocket. A fresh crisp pack, missing only the one I had savored before Donnie informed me
     that his truck was a “no smoking establishment”