Free Driftless by David Rhodes

started coffee and set three cups on the table. “Either you tell me what this is all about—right now—or take your old box home.”
    “You tell her,” said Grahm.
    “These are shipping records and report forms that prove American Milk is stealing from farmers, defrauding the government, and selling tainted product.”
    “Holy shit,” said Gail. “Where did you get them?”
    “I took them.”
    Cora talked for quite a while longer and Gail realized somewhere near the end of the narrative that she hadn’t been listening. The picture in her mind of her sister-in-law making off with papers from work had crowded out everything else. The coffeemaker groaned twice, grueling sounds of concentrated mechanical anguish ending in a gasp of caffeinated steam. As though in response, the CD player in the living room turned off.
    “Coffee?”
    “Sure,” said Cora.
    “No thanks,” said Grahm. He was currently feeling guilty about bringing his sister into the same awful business that had been destroying his relationship with Cora for the past six months. Gail gave him some anyway, and he drank it after pouring in enough milk to bring the liquid up to the rim of the cup.
    “You should get milk from us,” said Grahm. “This stuff from the store has been boiled to death.”
    “Yes, but they take all the fat out and I perform for people on a stage.”
    “Doesn’t seem to interfere with your drummer’s eating.”
    “Men don’t have to look good, especially behind a set of drums. Everyone notices women.”
    “Tell me about it,” said Cora, pouring herself a cup of coffee. “Our society is shot through with double standards.”
    Gail frowned at her but didn’t say anything. As far as she was concerned Cora had directly benefited from those double standards. She lived on a farm inherited in the final act of a long drama of double standards, mostly written, directed, and acted out by Gail’s mother, who expressed her preference for boys in general and Grahm in particular with every embittered fiber of her being. The leather strap she kept hanging beside the stove might as well have had “Gail” embossed on it, so seldom was it used on anyone else.
    “What am I supposed to do with these papers?”
    “You won’t understand what they mean,” said Cora, burning her tongue and spilling several teaspoons of coffee on her sweatshirt. “Just keep them in a safe place.”
    “People get in trouble over these kinds of things,” said Gail. “You hear about it all the time.”
    “Oh, calm down and stop being so dramatic,” said Cora, who privately admired her sister-in-law’s talent for walking around un-surrendered in her underwear. She had a figure, for sure, but who didn’t before having two children? And she probably exercised, what with all the free time she had. Still, there was something intrinsically unwholesome about just wearing underwear, even clean underwear. “As long as we have these papers we have nothing to worry about,” she said. “There are laws that protect us from lawbreakers.”
    “By the way,” said Grahm in his getting-ready-to-leave voice, “what’s the matter with your lawn mower? It’s sitting out by the road.”
    “It won’t start.”
    “I’ll look at it on the way out.”
    After they left, Gail put the cardboard box in the closet and found her bass. She was feeling lucky and ready to try to learn the Barbara Jean song again.

KEEPING A RESPECTFUL DISTANCE
    W INIFRED SMITH HAD BEEN IN FULL- TIME PASTORAL MINISTRY for six years. At thirty-three, she remained confident that God had a plan for her, a purpose, but she did not yet know what it entailed. And though she eagerly anticipated the joy that would accompany embarking on her life’s mission, she avoided imagining in any detail what her future might hold—for fear vain predilections might block the Way in which unseen forces were guiding her. Allowing things to develop all by themselves would open doors of experience.
    In just