Those Who Favor Fire by Lauren Wolk (easy readers .TXT) 📕

vast clutch of closely packed eggs, three hands hatched out of the nestled congregation and reached tentatively upward. No more than three. But to Joe’s astonishment, the preacher began softly to applaud.

“Before me rises a sea of waving hands, acknowledging, celebrating the bond between us, the certainty that it is the marriage, the collaboration of parenthood, and not the woman unto herself that we are honoring today. A sea of hands. A sea of hands. This sea of hands rejoicing. And another. And another. And another.”

Rachel had known liars before. She had been lied to, fooled, shamed—not often, but often enough. Never, though, had she spoken up, drained her fury. Contained, it had achieved a greater potency, a stronger proof, than it merited. It had tainted the vessel that held it, embittered her, occasionally made her bold.

And yet, in this place, Rachel was mute. She wanted so badly to face this man. But she simply could not. And she was not even sure why.

“Come on, Joe,” she said, stamping her feet solidly as she rose, so that the thump of them echoed through the church. “Church is over.”

Rachel let her heels knock on each step as she led Joe down from the balcony. At the door, she turned. She looked straight down the aisle toward the pulpit. The Reverend Gerald Cryers was counting on his fingers the merits of the assembled men, calling out their praises to the congregation who still sat, heads bowed, obedient as calves. He watched Rachel and smiled uncertainly. She leaned her back against the church door so that it began to open, creaking. One man at the end of a pew swung his head into the aisle, leaning around to see who was sneaking out early, like a horse looking out of a barn door, eye mostly white, mane twitching. He too watched Rachel for a moment and then swung back around, surveyed his neighbors. She saw him counting the hands raised for fathers on Mother’s Day. Seven.

In a moment, when the minister arrived at his reluctant “Amen,” every head came up. There was a great shuffling of feet. It was time to go home.

Rachel walked out of the church into the drenching sunlight and was immediately warmed. There were bees in the air and the smell of new grass.

“You know, my father was a splendid man,” Rachel said, as she and Joe turned onto Maple Street and toward the creek. “But this is Mother’s Day,” she said, throwing up her hands. “Mother’s Day. Not Father’s Day. Not Columbus Day or Veteran’s Day or some president’s birthday. Not Saint Patrick’s Day. Mother’s Day. A measly twenty-four hours in which the mothers around here get flowers and cards and chocolates and get to cook themselves their favorite meal or maybe even eat out. What in the world would move him to meddle with that?” She was walking fast, looking straight ahead.

“I mean, imagine all those women sitting there, happy that this is their special day. And then that bozo starts telling them that without men, they’re nothing. Dross. Sheep. Imagine.” There was awe in her voice. “And then they’ve got this absurd choice: raise their hands … and they might as well just bleat at this point … or sit still. Which is like saying, ‘No, I don’t honor my husband.’ When maybe they really do.”

She was silent the rest of the way back to her house, and Joe left her alone. He knew that she was lecturing the Reverend Gerald Cryers, walking off her fury like a cramp, and he did nothing to distract her, although he suddenly felt as if there were things he ought to tell her. About his own mother, and especially about himself.

When they got to Rachel’s house, Joe led her around back and straight to her hammock. “Have a rest,” he said, gently taking off her hat, slipping her shoes off her feet. “I’ll fix us some lunch.”

“Peanut butter and jelly,” she said with her eyes closed. “Milk if it’s really cold.”

They ate in the hammock, swinging slightly, and then went into the woods together.

When they reached a patch of moss under a giant pine, Joe put out a hand to stop her. He tilted his head back and saw the blue of the sky through the branches of the tree, heard the gentle conversation of mourning doves, felt the chill of shadows on his face, and could not stand it for a moment more.

He turned to Rachel and, although he knew that he should give her some warning, gentled one hand along the back of her neck, put the other on her hip, and kissed her with such longing, with his lips moving so softly against hers that she stood very still and did not stop him. Their chests touched and parted, touched again. Rachel felt the space between them closing. As he was kissing her, she took a small step forward so that she suddenly felt him all along the front of her body, from her thighs to her throat, felt the pressure of his hands behind her, one still along her neck, the other flat against the top of her thigh, holding her gently, pressing her gently against him, as astonishing as brands.

She had had no inkling of this and wondered if he had known it would happen. She hoped that he had not. She hoped that he had walked into these woods unknowing. She held herself in check for a moment more as she pondered these things with a sliver of her mind. And then she opened her lips as slowly as a space between clouds, moved her hands around him as unerringly as vines, and closed the last of the distance between them.

Joe felt Rachel make her decision and was as moved by the knowledge as by anything he could remember. He lifted her up against him and carefully laid her down on the moss. It took him a long moment to open his clothes, lift her skirt like