Read Online A Question of Mercy by Elizabeth Cox - Free Book Online Page A

he’s trying to get back to where he was, but doesn’t know how to get there.” She spoke as though this had happened before.
    They set up a rollaway bed, a table and lamp, and his stuffed animals, but Jess heard him whimpering every night; then she heard Clementine open the basement door—talking to Adam or singing until he felt right. After four days Edward suggested that Adam spend the night in his own room—the guest room they had fixed up for him. So he did, and the whimpering stopped.
    â€œHe’s just different. He’s been that way since he was born,” Clementine said. “But he always looked like a regular boy.” Adam was lean and tall, with thick hair—handsome, even. “He couldn’t walk until he was three,” she said. “He couldn’t talk right until he was six.”
    He still can’t , Jess thought, but didn’t say.
    Those next few months brought a shift of roles to the house: Clementine embraced the chores that had been Jess’s pleasure, Edward Booker took Adam to the zoo and to ball games, Jess spent more time with her friends. And even though Jess had not welcomed Clementine into their family, she was forced to agree with her father that the woman was a fine cook.
    Clementine spent whole afternoons in the kitchen, and by six o’clock the house smelled like suppertime. Everything she made was good. She baked chocolate cakes and blackberry cobblers. She asked Jess what kind of cookies she wanted for lunch and sometimes made cupcakes, placing them on a square plate in the shape of a pyramid.
    But Jess objected when Clementine moved the furniture to suit her own taste, moving the sofa and chairs to face the TV, and bringing in a rug from her own house. She took down a mirror out of the hallway. Jess remembered when her mother had bought it, and hung it there. She couldn’t bear the changes, and complained to her father.
    â€œShe lives here now, Jess,” her father said; but the next day the mirror had been re-hung, though other tables and chairs were rearranged. Clementine told Adam he could arrange his room the way he wanted, and one afternoon passing by the room, Jess saw Adam bending over a framed photo of his father and Clementine and Adam (at about five years old) standing beside a picnic table. His father had one arm draped around Adam’s shoulder. Jess had seen Adam touch the face of his father in the photo, moving his finger over the tiny face trying to feel the cheeks, the nose.
    But the one still-sacred part of Jess’s life happened each Saturday when she rode her horse, Buckhead, at some nearby stables. Her father was proud of Jess’s riding skills. Over the years he had travelled to see her perform in shows, bragging on the ribbons she had won; but when he began to bring Adam to the stables on Saturday, Jess felt another part of her life slipping away.
    â€œMaybe he could learn to ride,” Edward said. “Maybe you could teach him.”
    â€œIt’s not that easy,” Jess said.
    One Saturday, Jess let Adam mount Buckhead and, reluctantly, led him around the ring. Adam pulled back too hard on the reins and kicked Buckhead’s sides, the way he had seen cowboys perform in the movies. When he dismounted on the wrong side, the horse spooked, kicked out his back leg, and ran to the other side of the ring.
    â€œMy Gosh!” Jess said. “Can’t you do anything right!” Adam backed away. Jess approached Buckhead, calmed him and led him back. “Come here,” she said to Adam, and pushed a brush into his hand. “Whenever you ride you have to brush down the horse and cool him off with a hose. “Like this.” She moved Adam’s arm abruptly toward the horse. Buckhead shied away again before allowing Adam to brush his back and mane. Adam brushed slowly, methodically.
    Jess did not expect Adam to enjoy the chore of grooming. She hoped he would never want to come