Broken Honor Read Free Page A

she harbored a deep rebellious streak, something she suspected she inherited from her mother.
    Her mother had been a hopelessly idealistic and extremely impractical romantic. Amy thought of herself as a practical idealist with a touch of romanticism. As long as it was from a distance. She wasn’t sure she believed, as her mother had, that she was destined for any great romantic love. She was, in fact, quite convinced otherwise.
    She liked to believe in the abstract that there were knights on white horses, but for herself … there were only mules.
    And while she might like mules, she did not want to marry one.
    â€œI found two of your people,” Sherry said with a wide grin. “They are husband and wife. I even have their phone number. Now getting them to talk to you … well, I leave that in your experienced hands.”
    Amy gave her a rueful smile. “They didn’t want to talk?”
    â€œNope,” Sherry said. “They are now fine, upstanding Republicans.”
    Amy chuckled. She had done her dissertation on the protest movements of the twentieth century, arguing that the protests of the sixties and early seventies against the Vietnam War and segregation—they became linked in the minds of many people—comprised the first national American protest completely free of economic interest. The abolition movement also was moral in nature, but she’d contended it was far smaller and less national in scope.
    Perhaps because her mother had been a part of protests, she was interested in their leaders and what had happened to them in the years since the protests ended. Although her dissertation had centered on the protests themselves, she’d continued to study the effects of those years on the people who led the movement, and planned a book on the subject. There was, she’d found, no common denominator. Some had wasted their lives, unable to survive productively without a cause; others had continued their activism in both governmental and private roles; and still others had turned into what they had once despised the most: their parents.
    This, she often thought, was her romanticism: the mysteries and contradictions of history, even modern history.
    And it was safe.
    Emotional and physical safety meant a lot to her. Her childhood had been chaotic—she’d moved from one city to another, often as a member of an extended family where drugs flowed freely. She was the one who insisted on going to school, on trying to bring some order to their lives. She had been the parent.
    Her attention turned back to Sherry. “Good work,” she said. “I’ll call them tomorrow and try to make an appointment.”
    â€œThey’re in Chicago,” Sherry warned.
    â€œAre you up to house-sitting with Bojangles again?”
    â€œAre you kidding?” Sherry said. “It’s a refuge.”
    Sherry lived with two other graduate students in a small house with only one bathroom. Though her assistant liked her housemates, she relished the privacy she had at Amy’s. And Sherry was the only person who had any kind of rapport with emotionally challenged Bojangles.
    In all, Sherry was the best thing that had happened to Amy in years. She was sharp, efficient, fascinated with the same obscurities as Amy, and loved dogs, cats, and anything else with four legs and a tail. It was complete compatibility. Too bad she would probably leave at the end of the year for an instructor’s post at a college in the Midwest.
    They talked about one student who showed particular promise, then Amy looked at her watch. “I’m going to run home before my afternoon class. I left a paper there.”
    â€œRight,” Sherry said with a lifted eyebrow.
    â€œAll right,” Amy said. “I have office hours this afternoon, and Bojangles.…”
    â€œYou don’t have to convince me. He has my heart, too.”
    Amy paid the bill, which she often did. Sherry had