Run(3)

Bo didn’t say anything. For a second, she just stood there. I didn’t know, but I guessed she was probably staring me and Christy down. My heart had lodged itself in my throat, and I wasn’t too sure if I’d ever breathe normally again.

But then, to my surprise, the burning halo began to move away, down the sidewalk.

“Maybe next week?” Christy hollered after her. “Jesus loves you, Bo.” Then, under her breath, she murmured, “Whore. Probably on a walk of shame home right now. No other reason to be out this early on a Sunday unless you’re church-bound.”

“Christy, Agnes,” Brother Thomas called from the top of the steps. “It’s almost nine, girls. Y’all come on inside and head to your class.”

“Coming, sir,” Christy said. “You ready, Agnes?”

I stared down the street, my eyes following the back of Bo’s head until she was too far away and the golden-red colors blurred with the rest of the hazy world around me.

“Agnes!” Christy tugged on my free hand. “Come on.”

“Oh, sorry.” I turned around and followed her into the church, my cane tapping the corner of each step. “Can you believe that?” I whispered as we made our way across the sanctuary and toward the hallway that led to the classrooms.

“What?”

“Bo,” I said. “That she just walked away.”

“Of course she did,” Christy said. “What was she gonna do, beat us up right in front of Brother Thomas? Besides, even Bo would never hit a blind girl.”



My sister hadn’t gone to church with us that day. Actually, she hadn’t been to church with us in a while. Not since she turned eighteen and declared that Mama and Daddy couldn’t make her go anymore. They’d tried. And Grandma had called and given her a talking-to. But Gracie didn’t budge.

Most of the time, she’d sleep in on Sunday morning and was gone when the rest of us got home. I was never sure where she went all day. There was hardly anything to do in Mursey on Sundays, and most of her friends had to be in church. The whole town was in church. Except the Dickinsons, but I doubted Gracie was hanging out with them.

Mama and Daddy didn’t question her much, though. Not lately. She was less than a week from leaving for college in Lexington, and she was spending as much of that time out of the house as she could.

She still hadn’t gotten home by the time I went to bed that night, but my parents had left the porch light on for her.

“She’s an adult now,” Mama said. “She can stay out a little late if she wants.”

It was just past one in the morning when I got up to use the bathroom. I had to hold my alarm clock up to my face to read the red numbers. I climbed out of bed and crept through the house in the dark, sliding my hand along the walls. I didn’t need my cane or any lights on. We’d lived in this house since I was born, and I knew it as well as I knew the sound of my mother’s voice. I could probably have left for years, not step foot in this house for decades, only to come back and still be able to find my way around in the dark without a second thought.

Not that that was real likely. Best I could figure, I’d probably grow old in this house.

The bathroom was right at the top of the stairs. I looked down and saw that the lamp in the living room was still on, which meant Gracie wasn’t back yet. She always turned it off on her way up to bed. With the light on, I could make out some of the living room furniture—the back of Daddy’s recliner, the coffee table, one side of the tan couch. It was still blurry, and if it had been anyone else’s house, I wouldn’t have been able to tell what a bit of it was. But it was my living room; it hadn’t changed in years, so my memory filled in some of the gaps my eyes couldn’t.

I opened the bathroom door, not bothering to turn on the light. There was no point unless I was checking my reflection, and I sure didn’t want to do that. Even I could see how messy my hair got after a few hours of sleep.

I’d just finished washing my hands and shut off the faucet when I heard the front door open downstairs. I poked my head out of the bathroom and watched as shadows crossed the living room.

“Come on,” my sister’s voice whispered.

“What about your parents?”

I didn’t know that voice, but it belonged to a boy.

“They’re heavy sleepers,” Gracie told him. “And we’ll sneak you out before they get up in the morning.”

“You sure?”

“You don’t want to?”

“No. Believe me, I do.”

The shadows weren’t crisp enough for me to make out what they were doing, but I knew what it sounded like when people kissed. Not from personal experience—just TV and some awkward encounters in the hallways at school—but that’s what my sister and this boy were doing at the bottom of the stairs.

I felt my cheeks heat up.

After a second, the kissing sounds stopped. Gracie giggled. “Let’s go upstairs,” she whispered.

I backed up and hid behind the bathroom door. I heard the lamp switch off, and a second later two sets of footsteps hurried up the stairs and past me, down the hall. There were a few more seconds of giggling before Gracie’s door shut with a soft latching sound.

I leaned against the wall for a minute, then pressed my fingers to my lips, wondering what it was like to be kissed, wondering if I’d ever find out. I’d been jealous of my sister a thousand times over the years—she was the one with perfect vision, the more popular one, the more confident one. But it was more than that.