The Speed of Mercy by Christy Conlin (good books for high schoolers txt) 📕

them think she’s sick. The food comes quickly. The girls have chocolate milkshakes in glasses with the metal canisters between them. Frank ordered them with whipped cream and cherries on top.

“We want to see if we can convince the old bird to finally sell the house. It would make a first-rate hotel. Or maybe a museum. We could sell it to the province. The O’Clearys are worth remembering, those great old eccentrics from Ireland.”

“Dad, Granny is perfectly fine. She doesn’t want to move.”

“It’s true, Frank. Your mother does seem sharp as ever. It’s remarkable how little the house has changed over the years.”

“There comes a time for us all. You know old folks, especially the ladies. They get more dangerous the older they get.”

Cynthia bites her lip. She knows better than to get into it with her father in public, Stella notices. Frank’s smiling but his voice is measured.

Frank asks Stella’s father question after question about Athens and his work and the Hocking River. Cynthia and Stella eat and listen to the men talk about the old days, about Frank’s business. Stella has a hard time understanding what Frank does. He talks about investments and stocks, about buying and trading, about mining and minerals in faraway places. The girls go to the washroom together. Cynthia plays with her hair in the mirror and whispers that her father’s into gaming, hospitality and leisure, water resources, asset management and property development, investments, stocks, bonds. Cynthia rattles these words off with the speed of an auctioneer.

“It’s stupid. I don’t get what he does. Your father’s a historian. He has a real job.”

The girls go back to the table and Cheryl comes by with the bill, which Frank insists on paying. Stella turns and her dress sticks to her scraped hip. A bit of blood soaks through the light blue fabric. Stella covers it with her hand and looks away. Cynthia says nothing as Stella puts on her sweater, which hangs down over the stain.

Cynthia stands by the booth talking about canoeing and making soap, picking blueberries and making jam, the fun things Stella can do with her and Granny Scotia. Cynthia makes endless banter so Stella can adjust her sweater. Stella watches Frank put his hand on her father’s shoulder, patting him as though William is a high-backed chair and Frank wants to see how sturdy it is after all these years, if there is any give. Her father is rigid now, and the comfort of the good food, the fresh fish, the rich milkshake, is gone. Frank then claps her father on the back and gives him a look of pity.

“You always were the sensitive type, Billy. My assis­tant, Tommy Jessome, can help you out too. Just know how glad the Seaburys are to have you home, right, Cynthia?”

They are almost at the door now and Cynthia turns around. “See you at the barbeque, Stella.”

The rest of the afternoon Stella’s father shrinks into himself, poring over books and papers, lining up file folders. He starts his new job the following week, the last week of August, before September classes start after Labour Day weekend. Stella thinks that because she is almost thirteen her father feels no guilt (or less guilt . . . less shame, that’s what it is) about leaving her on her own in a village, where life is simple and safe. He’s burying himself in his work. Her father brightens in the company of the Seaburys, not his own dour daughter, the itty thing with thin hair and mismatched eyes.

She realizes, for the first time, how jealous she is of these people, their bigger-than-life smiles and laughs, their health and confidence. But Stella’s never had anyone want to be her friend before. She wants to see Cynthia and, of course, she also wishes she had never met her.

Temporal Displacement.

Now

Stella’s lady parts, as Nurse Calvin called them, were not working properly, which was why she was at the hospital. She had not slept well. She knew that poor sleep made her memory worse. Cynthia’s grandmother also called them lady parts. Granny Scotia. Why was she thinking of Cynthia and Granny Scotia? Stella squeezed her hands into fists. There was a nautical picture on the wall across from her, a lobster boat in a green sea, a fisherman hauling his traps. It looked like a paint-by-number. The fisherman held a giant blue lobster, frighteningly out of proportion to the trap. The fisherman had a grey beard and red cheeks, and a crazy smile. “Ahoy, Stella,” he seemed to be saying with his eyes.

“Scootch your bottom down,” a nurse with wavy auburn hair said. “Don’t worry, Stella.”

Her name tag read Clara. Stella stared at it so she wouldn’t forget who she was. Clara smiled encouragingly, waving Stella down a bit more, as she would if she was helping her park a car. “A little bit more,” she said. “And a bit more.”

Stella shuffled her hips and buttocks down the examination table, but then too far and the nurse and Grace lurched forward to grab Stella’s sides so she wouldn’t crash down between the stirrups, hauling her back up. Stella’s feet now rested in the stirrups. She didn’t want to bawl in this room with bright lights. The fisherman’s smile seemed even wider now. Stella fluttered her lids together, sealing away the wall and the fisherman with his creepy lobster.

Stella woke up, parched, groggy, in a sedative haze. Memory is a mystery — the new neurologist’s summation. Why was she thinking of this? She sniffed. Hospital air. Stella opened her eyes. The doctor sat on a stool by her feet. The painted lobster loomed over his turban, the fisherman leering behind him. This was Dr. Singh. Not a doctor of the brain or the mind but a doctor of her innards. A gynecologist. Stella had been having her period again — dark, gruesome bits of blood. But her period stopped a number of years ago. The ache. Was this