Waking Rose: A Fairy Tale Retold by Regina Doman Read Free Book Online

were engaged in their faith, at least on some level, and this gave an unusual quality to the student body. People were friendly and eager to make friends, and Rose’s natural sociability reasserted itself. After a week, she found herself with over thirty friends in various groups, and never lacking for things to do. There were dances, hikes, hanging out in the student lounge, the chapel, the little café on the edge of campus—and oh yes, there were classes to go to.
    And those classes were far more fascinating than anything at her community college. Theology, history, philosophy, bioethics…Kateri had recommended that Rose sign up for the bioethics class with Dr. Cooper to fulfill her science core class. But by the middle of the first class, Rose was having serious doubts. Sure, Dr. Cooper was really interesting, but he wanted each student to do a major research paper on the issue of their choice that was far longer and more involved than anything else Rose had ever written, and it would be one-half of their grade for the class. How could she juggle this class and the semester play?
    As she worried over this, she couldn’t help noticing one student who sat in the first row, taking notes with unusual intensity. He was tall, broad-shouldered, with curly brown hair, brown eyes, and from his profile, Rose quickly decided she would like to get a better look at him sometime. She wondered what his name was, and if it was worth staying in this class just so she could find out...
    Now facing the quandary of whether to drop bioethics or the play, she hurried to her room after class and called home. “What do you think I should do?” she asked her mom.
    “Well, are you sure you have a part in the play?” her mom asked.
    “No, but I was called back for a second audition—and I sort of have a good feeling about it,” Rose sighed. “But do you seriously think I can do that—write a major research paper and have a lead role in the play? I would love to do the play, but it seems so—extraneous.”
    “But King Lear is a significant literary work, and your major is literature, isn’t it?” Mom pointed out. “If the play were something like Arsenic and Old Lace , I’d encourage you to drop it in favor of your schoolwork. But acting the part of Cordelia will give you an experience of Shakespeare that otherwise you would never have.”
    “I guess you’re right,” Rose considered. “But this paper is a monster. Really long, and he wants at least three source interviews.”
    Mom laughed. “Writing has always been your strong suit, Rose,” she said. “I know from homeschooling you. You can handle this paper. You have a gift for writing, just like your father had. He wrote for the Meyerstown News when we were up there.”
    “Did he?” Rose asked, remembering her red-haired father, whom she had loved so much. “He didn’t happen to write on any bioethical issues, did he? Maybe I could use his writings as source material.”
    “Well, he covered the Right to Life March every year—I know that,” her mom said. “That’s how he got labeled as an ultraconservative. The editor of the paper just wasn’t interested in the abortion issue. He used to say it was too passé.”
    “I bet that got Dad mad.”
    “It sure did. I was glad when he left the paper and went to work in the library.  It was so much less stress.”
    “Well, I really don’t want to do abortion as my topic, though,” Rose said. “It’s almost too obvious. Besides, I’m sure some people are already doing it.”
    “And you, being Rose, could never do something that other people were doing,” Mother laughed. “Well, let me think. Actually, there was another issue he was involved with, but he never got a chance to publish anything on it.”
    “What was that?”
    “It was a pretty strange and sad case. A nurse approached him and said that there was some kind of serious abuse going on at the hospital where she worked. She wanted your father to write