The Appeal by John Grisham Read Free Book Online

Wes found the remote and said to Mack, “Let’s watch
SportsCenter.”
Anything but local news.
    “Sure.”
    Ramona was boiling water and dicing a tomato. Mary Grace hugged her quickly and said, “A good day?” Yes, a good day, she agreed. No problems at school. Homework was already finished. Liza drifted off to her bedroom. She had yet to show any interest in kitchen matters.
    “A good day for you?” Ramona asked.
    “Yes, very good. Let’s use the white cheddar.” She found a block of it in the fridge and began grating it.
    “You can relax now?” Ramona asked.
    “Yes, for a few days anyway.” Through a friend at church, they had found Ramona hiding and half-starved in a shelter in Baton Rouge, sleeping on a cot and eating boxed food sent south for hurricane victims. She had survived a harrowing three-month journey from Central America, through Mexico, then Texas, and on to Louisiana, where none of the things she had been promised materialized. No job, no host family, no paperwork, no one to take care of her.
    Under normal circumstances, hiring an illegal and unnaturalized nanny had never occurred to the Paytons.They quickly adopted her, taught her to drive but only on a few selected streets, taught her the basics of the cell phone, computer, and kitchen appliances, and pressed her to learn English. She had a good foundation from a Catholic school back home, and she spent her daytime hours holed up in the apartment cleaning and mimicking the voices on television. In eight months, her progress was impressive. She preferred to listen, though, especially to Mary Grace, who needed someone to unload on. During the past four months, on the rare nights when Mary Grace prepared dinner, she chatted nonstop while Ramona absorbed every word. It was wonderful therapy, especially after a brutal day in a courtroom crowded with high-strung men.
    “No trouble with the car?” Mary Grace asked the same question every night. Their second car was an old Honda Accord that Ramona had yet to damage. For many good reasons, they were terrified of turning loose on the streets of Hattiesburg an illegal, unlicensed, and quite uninsured alien in a Honda with a zillion miles and their two happy little children in the rear seat. They had trained Ramona to travel a memorized route through the backstreets, to the school, to the grocery, and, if necessary, to their office. If the police stopped her, they planned to beg the cops, the prosecutor, and the judge. They knew them well.
    Wes knew for a fact that the presiding city judge had his own illegal pulling his weeds and cutting his grass.
    “A good day,” Ramona said. “No problem. Everything is fine.”
    A good day indeed, Mary Grace thought to herself as she began melting cheese.
    The phone rang and Wes reluctantly picked up the receiver. The number was unlisted because a crackpot had made threats. They used their cell phones for virtually everything. He listened, said something, hung up, and walked to the stove to disrupt the cooking.
    “Who was it?” Mary Grace asked with concern. Every call to the apartment was greeted with suspicion.
    “Sherman, at the office. Says there are some reporters hanging around, looking for the stars.” Sherman was one of the paralegals.
    “Why is he at the office?” Mary Grace asked.
    “Just can’t get enough, I guess. Do we have any olives for the salad?”
    “No. What did you tell him?”
    “I told him to shoot at one of them and the rest’ll disappear.”
    “Toss the salad, please,” she said to Ramona.
    They huddled over a card table wedged in a corner of the kitchen, all five of them. They held hands as Wes prayed and gave thanks for the good things of life, for family and friends and school. And for the food. He was also thankful for a wise and generous jury and a fantastic result, but he would save that for later. The salad was passed first, then the macaroni and cheese.
    “Hey, Dad, can we camp out?” Mack blurted, after he’d