The Road to Mercy by Kathy Harris Read Free Book Online Page A

time.
    He opened the door to their brownstone, the only home he could remember, and rolled his old bicycle into the entryway.
    “Isaac, you’re here!” Mama Ruth looked up from the hall table where she was arranging a bowl of fresh fruit. She stepped to him, brushed the curls from his face, and planted a kiss on his cheek.
    He smiled. His grandmother must now stand on her tiptoes to embrace him.
    She held him at arm’s length. “You look so much like your mother. I miss her.” Moisture filled her eyes. “Ah! Enough sentiment, old woman,” she muttered to herself. “Quickly, son, gather the silver candlesticks and cheese platter from the breakfront. We must finish the preparations.” She nudged him in the direction of the dining room and resumed her work.
    “Yes, Mama Ruth,” he said, securing his bike in the far corner of the entry before he set out to do his chores.
    Isaac knew in his heart it was his grandmother’s love that had kept him here for almost twelve years. Without her, he would have run away when he had been old enough to take care of himself. Grandfather’s old-fashioned ways and chillyself-absorption would have driven him out, just as it likely did his mother many years before.
    Or, perhaps, the strange religion had drawn her away. Isaac knew very little about his real parents. His father, Michael, his mother, Rebekah, and his brother and sister had been killed soon after he was born. There were times Isaac wished the accident had taken him too. He often wondered what life would have been like with his family.
    Mama Ruth still grieved for her daughter. But Grandfather refused to even speak of her. “
Cherem
. She is dead to me. I do not want to hear her name,” he would say.
    The words hurt Isaac. He never understood how someone could deny flesh and blood. To throw them away like a faded flower on a broken stem.
    On a few occasions, when Grandfather wasn’t home, Mama Ruth had shown Isaac photos of his family. His mother’s beauty took his breath away. He would always do his best to commit to memory the details of her eyes, her nose, and her hair. He tried to imagine her smell, the softness of her voice.
    In his favorite picture, his mother glowed. Her beautiful smile lit up her face as she held him, an infant no more than three months old. He saw that he had a striking resemblance to both his parents. His dark wavy hair and olive skin came from his mother, but the blue eyes reflected in the mirror each morning were like his father’s. Perhaps too much so and that was why Grandfather was so hard on him. He must have hated the man who took his daughter away.
    Or, perhaps, Isaac considered, he was walking in his mother’s shoes. Had she endured the same childhood he now lived?
    If only she could tell him how well he was doing.

9
Present Day
    Are you sure you don’t want to go out to eat?” Josh asked.
    “No,” Beth growled back at him. “I can do it.” She threw a pan into the sink with a loud clatter.
    Josh had watched her moods go up and down during the past three days, but this was the worst he had seen. “Honey, I’m not saying you can’t. I’m just suggesting it would be easier if we go out.”
    “I’m sorry my cooking isn’t as good as the gourmet food you eat on the road.” She shot him a disdainful look. “It works just fine for me when you’re gone.”
    She turned her back to him and wiped her cheek with a dishtowel. Her shoulders began to twitch and heave, and then he heard muffled sobs.
    The moods always played out after the tears came, and then a sense of normalcy returned. Although a tired and melancholy version. He hated to see what the prescription drugs were doing to her. She was up one minute and down the next.
    He approached his wife and laid his hand on her shoulder. She turned to embrace him, and he stroked her hair.
    “Are you okay?”
    She nodded, pulled away, and rubbed her eyes. “Yes. But I’m not sure why I, why we, have to go through