Read Online Jewelweed by David Rhodes - Free Book Online

have to sell, I’m not buying. And I’m not going to pretend that your religion or whatever you think—”
    â€œI should hope you wouldn’t pretend anything,” interrupted Winnie, crossing her long skinny legs inside her ankle-length dress and folding her arms on her lap.
    â€œThen what do you expect us to talk about? You’re a preacher. Isn’t it your job to convert me?”
    â€œI gave that up a long time ago. I’ve had to edit my beliefs so many times it wouldn’t make sense to insist that someone else subscribe to them.”
    â€œYou’re a preacher, aren’t you?”
    â€œYes, but stop making assumptions about me from that. I’ve tried very hard not to make any about you.”
    â€œI didn’t ask you to come here,” he snarled.
    Winnie found herself on the edge of an abyss. What a colossal mistake, coming here. But rather than backing up, she threw herself over the edge and waited for something to catch her.
    â€œLet me try to explain,” she said, exhaling. “See, after I learned you’d been transferred here it occurred to me that I should visit. At first I ignored it. Then I started having nightmares, indicating to me that I needed to push myself into uncomfortable psychological areas. Either that or live the rest of my life wallowing around in past realizations.”
    Blake starred out of the monitor at her.
    â€œGo on,” he said.
    â€œTo explain this next step you need to understand something I believe. It’s fine if you don’t believe it yourself, but to understand why I came here you need to understand something about what I believe. Can I tell you?”
    â€œGo on,” he said.
    â€œThank you. I believe that who I am is made up of many loyalties. I feel loyal to preserving my physical body, to surviving. I feel loyal to my husband, Jacob, and to my son, August. I’m loyal to my congregation. I’m loyal to my community and to preserving my good standing within it.I’m loyal to many other things, too, like being honest with myself, or at least trying to be. I feel loyal toward many cherished memories, like my mother and my loyalty toward—”
    â€œAnd these loyalties,” Blake interrupted, “they connect to each other, don’t they?”
    â€œYes,” said Winnie. “If you could feel the tugging of all my loyalties at once you would know what it feels like to be me at any particular moment. And the very best moments occur when all my loyalties are in harmony—when the loyalty to my church, for instance, does not conflict with the loyalty I feel toward my husband, and the loyalty I feel toward my husband does not inhibit the loyalty I feel to my son, and so forth.”
    â€œBut sometimes they do,” said Blake cautiously. “Sometimes they surely do.”
    â€œYes, sometimes they do, and that’s when everything gets mixed up. That’s when holding myself together becomes more difficult, when it becomes—”
    â€œThen you have to choose,” Blake interrupted.
    â€œExactly. All loyalties are not the same, and sometimes a few of them must be forsaken, set aside for a short time. But there are some I dare never ignore because they lie at the root of me, and if I turn my back on them, well, that’s—”
    â€œThat’s apostasy!” said Blake, the veins in his neck bulging, his body shaking and the chains clattering. “That’s the unforgivable sin, the curse against the Holy Spirit. You can’t do that! There’d be nothing left of you, Mrs. Helm. All the others depend on that one.”
    â€œYes, Blake, and the deepest loyalty I feel is also the hardest to explain, because it’s not just me at that level. It’s me and—”
    â€œSomething else!” yelled Blake. “It’s you and something else, something that can never be defined or casually talked about, or anticipated or even