Kiss the Morning Star by Elissa Janine Hoole Read Free Book Online Page A

us—some wisdom for a couple of dharma bums. He’s not icky, not like a molester or a murderer. But still I feel danger, something unsettling about him.
    Kat has the Kerouac book out, now, and she reads the rucksack revolution passage to him. I wait for the man’s eyes to harden, for him to warn us of the sins we could encounter in such books. But he nods, his eyes full of that warmth, and he listens to Kat’s enthusiastic monologue with a patient smile.
    At last Kat stops for breath, and Pastor Shepherd speaks up. “I just know it was no accident that we met here this evening.”
    “How’s the sermon coming, Pastor Shepherd?” Our waitress beams as she fills his coffee cup.
    “I was struggling a bit, Dana,” he says, “but I think it’s coming together now.”
    She includes us in her smile. “If you girls are looking for God, well, you’ve found one of His people, right here. I don’t know how many sermons have been written in that booth, but it’s got to be quite a few.”
    “Well, Jack’s pie is the best inspiration,” he says, handing her his plate and fork. “You tell him that, now.” He clasps his hands together, and I worry for a minute that he might ask us to pray right there in the diner, making a big show of it. I hate praying in public.
    “Say, are you girls moving on this very evening, or are you staying here in town?” He looks concerned. “It’s awfully late to be out there on the road now.”
    “We’re heading out,” I say.
    “We could stay,” says Kat.
    “Excellent!” says Pastor Shepherd. “My wife and I would love to have you stay with us. We have a guest room that nobody uses since our sons went off to college. You’ll have to put up with a bit of a mess, as we’ve been packing all week for a little road trip of our own, though.”
    “Oh?” says Kat. “Where are you headed?”
    Pastor Shepherd smiles broadly as he slides out of his booth. He picks up his check and then casually snags ours as well. “No, no, I insist,” he says, in answer to our protests. “My Bible study group is heading down to Mexico with several other congregations in Wyoming and Utah for a missionary trip. We’re going to be laying the foundation for a new church in a village in the mountains. We leave the day after tomorrow, in fact.”
    “That sounds amazing,” says Kat.
    I follow them out of the diner, feeling far from home, but I know I’m not missing the dusty train tracks and the stale room where my father lies staring at the ceiling. Home doesn’t exist anymore. Either that or I haven’t found it yet.

 
    Reasons My Mother Would Support This Rucksack Revolution
     
     
She sang hymns with my father, but alone she belted out Janis Joplin’s “Me and Bobbie McGee.”
At church, she was known for her taste in shoes, but outside of church, she was barefoot most of the time.
She would worry about my father, but Mom had a little streak of tough love in her for both of us, and she said my dad was prone to babying me. Was I babying him in his grief?
She loved everything about Katy.
She believed in silly things like possibility—she described meeting my father as an act of fate.
When she told stories of my daring feats as a child, she always seemed a little proud, even as she clutched me closer, the reflex motion of her hand on her heart balanced by the shine in her eyes.
     

5
    Wooden house
raw gray—
Pink light in the window
—Jack Kerouac
     
    I don’t have nightmares about it, not exactly. I don’t dream about flames or fire engines or the pale, shocked faces of my neighbors. The night my mom died and my home burned to the ground is surreal and terrifying in my memory—I recall tiny things like the feeling of the frosty grass on my bare feet and the smell of the oxygen mask, but I forget the big things like how I broke my bedroom window or who called 911 or when was the first time I realized my mom wasn’t beside me.
    Instead my dreams are filled with images of classrooms, where