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

the driveway, the door opening and slamming shut, feet quickly crunching over the dirt driveway, rushing in through the back porch, the door opening.

“Hello, Sprague Household.” Frank pokes his head in the kitchen door. “I was talking to Granny, Cynthia, and she sounded a bit confused. I thought I’d go check on her and pick you up. She called me in the middle of a meeting,” Frank said, “rambling away, as she does nowadays, a bunch of nonsense. We’re trying to finish up the details for the backwoods weekend for some colleagues, at the old lodge at Mercy Lake, before we turn around and close up for the season. It hasn’t been used much in years, so lots of last-minute details. Tommy’s looking after it so I can check on Granny.”

Stella sees her father tense up.

Mercy Lake. Granny mentioned Mercy Lake. Had warned Stella about it.

Cynthia crosses her arms and eyes her father. “What’s wrong with Granny? She was totally fine when we left, right, Stella?”

Stella doesn’t answer.

“Sorry to hear that, Frank. Maybe it’s the afternoon heat.” Stella’s father opens the fridge and takes out another beer. He holds it out to Frank, who shakes his head. Her father twists the beer cap off and takes a swig. As Stella listens to him guzzle, she thinks about the flinch that rippled across his face when Frank mentioned Granny rambling.

“Come on, Cynthia, let’s get going. I have things to do. Put your bike in the trunk.” Frank is impatient so Cynthia hurries to get her bag. Stella wraps up a few muffins. She gives them to Frank. “For Granny Scotia,” she says. Frank is delighted. “How thoughtful, Stella, dear.”

Her father nods. “Actually, Cynthia made them. But that’s nice of you to get them ready, Stella, to share. Maybe you can learn to cook,” he says hopefully, and reproachfully. Stella is too much like him and not enough like her mother, her aunt, her grandmother, all the dead Spragues.

“Billy, you said you found a book of your father’s, on the history of the town. Do you have that handy?”

“Sure, in my study.” Stella’s father heads down the hall. He comes back right away, his face serious. “I can’t find my paper.”

“What paper?”

“My research paper. For the November conference. I’ve been finishing it up over the last week. I don’t have another copy.”

“I’m sure it will show up. Don’t worry about the book. I’ll get it another time. Cynthia, let’s go. Take that apron off.”

Cynthia takes the apron off and hangs it neatly over a kitchen chair. She disappears down the hall. Stella’s father looks at Stella. “Did you see it, Stella? Were you in my study?”

“Dad, I was wrapping up muffins.”

Just then Cynthia comes back into the kitchen. She has the backpack in her hand and throws it over her shoulder. The paper falls out, all sixty pages of it spilling over the floor.

“Cynthia?” Frank’s face flushes red and his eyes bulge. “Jesus Christ, Cynthia. What’s wrong with you?”

Stella says nothing. She looks at Cynthia, who holds her father’s glare. “I wanted to read it,” she says.

Stella can’t believe she’s not even denying it. She waits for her father to get angry too, but he says nothing. He runs his hands through his greasy hair and raps his chin with his fingertips.

Frank starts gathering up the pages. He barks at Cynthia to get on her knees and help him. “There will be hell to pay when we get home. You can’t steal people’s work. What’s wrong with you? It’s that boarding school we put you in. And your grandmother ranting and raving. There’s going to be changes around here, that’s for sure. I’m not going back to New York and leaving you behaving in this way, with no one in charge.”

“Frank, I think you’re overreacting. Let’s ask her why she took it. Cynthia, why on earth would you steal my paper? I cannot even fathom.”

She looks straight at Stella’s father. “I wanted to read it, Mr. Sprague. Stella’s always talking about how interesting your work is. She says you’ve been working day and night. She’s so proud of you.”

Cynthia doesn’t say that Stella has been complaining day and night.

“I wanted to read it, that’s all. I know I should have asked. I’m sorry. I thought you’d say no. I thought when you finished it that you wouldn’t look at it for a few days, that I could sneak it back.”

“Sneak is the word. I have a mind to tan you with a cane just as I did when you were five years old.”

“Frank, there’s no need for that. It’s actually kind of flattering. Stella isn’t interested in reading my work. I talk too much about it, she says.”

This is not going anywhere near what Stella had planned.

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Sprague. I hope you’ll forgive me.”

“I accept your apology. So how about it? Will you accept our invitation for the day trip? We’d be overjoyed if you came. Right, Stella?”

Stella says nothing. She shrugs and jiggles her head, trying to shake it, to remind her father it was supposed to just be the two of them, father and daughter. But her father decides this means Stella thinks it’s a brilliant idea. Cynthia looks so happy that Stella wants to slap her.

Frank comes back over that evening as Stella is eating her bedtime snack before going upstairs, a glass of milk and some toast. Frank calls from the back porch where he’s having beer and pretzels with her father: “Come out and join us for a few minutes, Stella.” She sits in the old Morris chair in the corner of the porch. Frank has an ancient tackle box with him. He says that her father should go off fly fishing for a break, the way he did as a boy. Stella can stay with Cynthia over Labour Day weekend.

Her father fiddles with the exotic-looking flies. Stella has never seen her father do real physical labour or anything mechanical. The boy her father had