Honey (Shooting Stars 4)

I felt my heart jump in my chest when he did that.

As a result of all that. whenever Grandad looked at me. I would think God Himself was looking at me through Grandad's eves. Sometimes I fled from them, avoided him, afraid that he could actually read my thoughts and know I had dreamed wicked things. All the days of my youth, he seemed to hover over me and around me more than he did anyone else in our family. Why? What did he know about me that I. myself. didn't know? It used to terrify me and still did a little. Was there something dark and evil inside me? Was I what Grandad Forman called, "prime feed for hungry Satan"?

Standing up to him once. Mommy recited Scripture in defiance of his dreadful threats and promises.

'Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal," she told him, backing him off.

Surely, she was right. Merciful God would not hurt me for anything I had done without knowing why it was sinful. I thought, and I picked up the Bible, intending to put it aside. but I couldn't help being drawn to the pages Grandad obviously had marked for me to read before I went to sleep.

He had marked First Corinthians, 5:11: But now I have -written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such a one, no, not to eat . . . put away from among yourselves thatwicked person.

What did he mean? Did he mean Chandler? Did he mean me. myself?

How dare he make such an accusation? He had never even met Chandler, how could he condemn us without knowing what was truly in our hearts?

I felt like heaving his Bible and his threats out the window, and actually walked toward it to do just that, but when I started to open the window, I stopped. I couldn't put the blame on the Good Book, and it was sacrilegious to treat it like some garbage. Feeling trapped, I grew furious, went to my desk, and ripped a sheet of paper from my notebook. Using a black Magic Marker so it would be large and prominent. I wrote one of Mommy's favorite retorts: Judge not that ye be not judged, and then I taped it to the cover of Grandad's old Bible.

I went to his room and placed it at the foot of his door so it would be the first thing he saw when he rose in the morning. I felt good about it, but I couldn't help trembling. Mommy was the one who stood up to him the best of all of us, certainly not me.

But someday soon I'd like to know why I was his favorite target for his hell and damnation speeches. Why did he see the face of a sinner in me? What had I ever done to give him such thoughts and fears? How could he ever think such dreadfully disgusting thoughts about Uncle Peter and me? It gnawed at my insides like some ache that would never go away. I vowed I would know the answers.

Yet. I was almost as afraid of the answers as I was of the questions themselves,

Saturday was the long and difficult day it had promised to be. By the time I rose and went down to breakfast. Daddy and Grandad were long in the fields with Uncle Simon. I looked at Mommy to see if Grandad had said anything about his Bible and what I had taped onto it. I expected he would rail about my defiance and lack of remorse or something, but Mommy's talk was only about how hard Daddy was going to work and how she wished Grandad would agree to hire another man, at least during planting and especially during harvesting.

"Simon does the work of two, maybe even three ordinary men, but your father hates to see him take on so much and do so much of what is his. Your grandad is a different story. The man feeds off his defiance and stubbornness. It fuels him and gives him the strength and energy of a man half his age. Say what you will about Abraham Forman, you have to give the devil his due." Mommy rattled on.

"I'll get out there and help." I said.

"You shouldn't be out there under this sun. Women and girls your age work like that back from where I came, but they quickly grew old beyond their years. I don't like your hands getting too tough and hard. It will hurt your violin playing, Honey."

I looked up with surprise. She had always admired and encouraged my playing, but she didn't speak of it as anything I would definitely do with my future.

"You really think that's important, Mommy?"

She paused in her work and mined to me, wiping her hands on a dish towel,

"Your father and I have had a talk with Mr. Wengrow. That man thinks a great deal of you and your talent. He did from the start. I have a mother's pride, of course, but he's a musician, a teacher, and he thinks you have what it takes to make a life with your violin. He wants us to let you try out for a school in New York City."

"I know," I said.

"Your father's worried about it. but I'm not." "How come?" I asked.

She sat at the table and reached for my hand to hold.

"You are not much younger than I was when I set out for America with Aunt Ethel," she said. "We arrived in New York City first, and all the traffic and the people, the tall buildings, hustle and bustle was frightening, but," she said with a small smile an her lips. "exciting, too. I had lived my whole life in a small country village. I thought I had landed on another planet, and don't forget, our English was not so good then, but we had some cousins who helped us and then we came here to Ohio to live.

"You have lived all your life in a rural world, too, but you have had the advantage of being in big cities and seeing what it's really like on television and in your movies. It won't be as strange to you, and you're a good girl. Honey. You'll always do the right thing, I'm sure. I'm not worried." she emphasized. "If it's right for you, you'll be right for it."

"I don't know if I am, Mommy. I don't know if I'm really as good as Mr. Wengrow thinks."

"Well, we'll find out." she said, patting my hand and rising. "What will be will be."

"Daddy agreed then?"

"Daddy agreed," she said. Her smile faded quickly. "Don't expect any encouragement from your grandfather. He'll be reciting prayers for the dead as soon as you set out."

"Why does he think so little of me, Mommy? Why does he expect me to be a sinner'?" I asked her.