Wings of Glass Read Free Page A

to screw the top on. How badly would it scald him?
    What a terrible thing to wonder. Take each thought captive, I told myself as he walked toward me. I flinched, not knowing if he was about to kiss me or hit me. That morning, I was lucky.
    His work boots gave him a couple inches of height, so I had to push up on my toes to reach him. When my mouthmet his unpuckered lips, he grunted as though I’d said something he disagreed with.
    When he left, I walked to the window, feeling exhausted. The kind of tired that seeps into your marrow and makes your bones feel like lead. It was all I could do to keep my eyes open as I watched our rusty mopar tear out of the driveway and screech around the bend.
    When it did, I noticed smudges of ketchup, and who knew what else, streaking down the once-white paint, now stained tobacco-yellow. I ran my fingertips slowly across the coarse living room wall, remembering Trent’s promise to paint it whatever color I wanted. Over the years, his dead promises had begun to line up like cars in a funeral procession.
    I stood there for the longest time, my palm flat against the chipped paint, knowing I should grab a sponge and clean off at least the worst of the filth. Ought to clean a lot of things. But if the house was spic and span, he would just find something else to complain about, something a bottle of Windex couldn’t wipe away.
    I was ready to head back to the bedroom when someone pounded on the back door. I had no friends, and my family was almost two hundred miles away. We lived a little out of the way with only two sets of neighbors on our street, both of whom steered clear of Trent, so I had no idea who it could be.
    I looked through the open kitchen window, past the torn screen, at a woman who was somehow familiar. It took a few seconds to remember this church lady who’d brought mea cake the first and last time I had visited Sheckle Baptist, nearly six months before.
    Trent and his buddies had eaten that cake in one stoned sitting. As he licked the orange icing from his fingertips, he told me church folk were a bunch of hypocritical killjoys that lived one way and expected everyone else to live another. I never went back, but the Bible she gave me to replace the one I’d lost to one of your father’s drunken tirades still lay hidden under the bed.
    “Long time no see,” the church lady said. In the sunlight, her hair shone the color of corn silk and looked just as fine. Tiny wrinkles feathered out from around the corners of her eyes, but the rest of her skin was smooth, making it hard to guess her age.
    “Long time,” I agreed. There was no way I could invite her in with the house such a mess—not that I wanted to.
    As if she could read my mind, she laid the back of her hand over her forehead like she was Scarlett O’Hara. “Isn’t it hot as molasses out here?”
    “Hot as what?” I wondered if maybe I’d heard her wrong.
    “Molasses,” she repeated, then blushed as if just realizing what she said. “That’s what my mama always said. She didn’t make a whole lot of sense sometimes, bless her heart.”
    I didn’t want to lie to her, so I just said, “Ma’am, I’m a little busy. Is there something I can do for you?”
    She gave me a look like she didn’t much believe me. I didn’t care if she did or didn’t, so long as she carried herself back to her car.
    “Well, I don’t want to keep you. I just was wondering if you had ever thought about visiting our church again?”
    What did she care? It wasn’t like they were hurting to fill their pews or collection baskets. Besides, even if Trent was the tithing sort, 10 percent of nothing would still be nothing. Back then I didn’t understand concern for someone else’s soul. Your mama didn’t understand much of anything except survival, baby.
    Inside my socks, my toes curled up tight. “I’m worshiping at home now.”
    She squinted at me for an uncomfortably long time. “The Bible says you should belong to a