Read Online Jewelweed by David Rhodes - Free Book Online Page A

understood. It’s a feeling at the ground zero of consciousness, but it’s not just a feeling and it’s not totally your feeling either, it’s also an experience and—”
    Winnie interrupted, “It’s me and something sacred.”
    â€œI understand,” said Blake.
    â€œThank you.”
    â€œPlease, tell me something else about you, Mrs. Helm. You’re actuallytalking about things that matter, real things. I never expected that. For three days I thought about a visitor coming to see me, because they told me someone was coming, and I thought about it in every way I could, but I never expected this.”
    â€œI guess I don’t know what else to say.”
    â€œSay anything. God, you can’t imagine how wonderful this is, talking with someone about something real.”
    â€œHow old are you, Blake?”
    â€œI don’t know. I’ve forgotten.”
    â€œThat’s impossible.”
    â€œYou’re right, it is. I’ll be thirty-two in six weeks.”
    â€œI’m forty-five. Do you think that’s too old to sit on the hood of a car?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œDo you think I’m too old to sit on the hood of my car? I was doing that in the parking lot. I didn’t want to come in earlier than our scheduled visit and I was trying to prepare myself. I was sitting on the hood of my car and feeling insecure about being too old. So what’s your opinion?”
    â€œWhat good is freedom, Mrs. Helm, if you never do anything unusual or odd? That’s what freedom means—doing whatever you need to do so long as nobody else is hurt by it. That’s what you were talking about before, doing things that conflict with your sense of yourself in other rooms of your mind. You have to be able to do that or you’re not really alive.”
    â€œSo there’s nothing wrong with a middle-aged woman like me sitting on the hood of my car?”
    â€œOf course there isn’t. Sit wherever you want and if anyone criticizes you, tell ’em to come see me.”
    Winnie laughed. “Good. I wasn’t sure what someone else would think.”
    â€œDid you say you knew my father? How is he?”
    â€œI’m afraid I don’t know him very well, Blake. My husband is better acquainted with him from his repair shop. I think he currently works for that shipping company north of Grange, delivering heavy products in his truck. As far as I know he is in good health. Does he come to see you?”
    â€œI talked him out of that. He’s emotional and there’s nothing the guards here like better than for relatives of prisoners to cry. It makes them feel proud of a job well done.”
    â€œSurely that’s not true.”
    â€œOf course you don’t believe it, Mrs. Helm. No reasonable person should. It’s just one of those little humiliating horrors brought to you by the human garbage pit. Right now—did you know this?—someone is listening to us. Someone is actually being paid to press a tiny wire to their ear and listen to us. It’s insane. Yes, I told my father to stop coming here. Having a son should not include the kind of snickering abuse that runs wild in here. He doesn’t deserve to feel the way he feels when he’s here, and I don’t want him to. If you lived in a garbage dump, would you want your father to visit?”
    â€œMy father is deceased, but he wouldn’t have visited me no matter where I lived.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œThat’s simply the way he was.”
    â€œFrankly, I can’t imagine that. My father is a saint and I sometimes hate him for it.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œI could never live up to it.”
    â€œDoes he expect you to?”
    â€œNo, of course not. He’s a saint.”
    â€œCan I ask another question?” asked Winnie.
    â€œSure.”
    â€œHave you been able to find some small measure of peace here?”
    â€œNot