Free Sherry's Wolf by Maddy Barone Page B

gathered a wicasa wakan was like a cross between a medicine man and a priest. She asked him to spell it, and he just blinked at her, as if she’d asked him how many miles it was to the moon. It was a guttural word, with soft, slurred consonants. As he spoke he touched the small leather bag he always wore around his neck and told her it held items that had personal and sacred significance to him. She actually found herself listening closely to him as he tried to explain to her what a wicasa wakan was, because he plainly was passionate about the topic in spite of his quiet voice. Sherry tried to understand what he was saying, but frankly, she didn’t understand the Lakota religion. It seemed nebulous, without the hard and fast rules she found so comforting about her Catholic faith.
    Stag’s religion, in comparison, didn’t seem to have a lot of rules. While he was trying to explain it to her, he used so many Lakota words that he said didn’t have English equivalents that she was reduced to just nodding now and then. She realized that he was telling her all this, which was very private, because he was trying to let her get to know him. Part of her wanted to tilt her nose in the air and ignore him. Another part of her was touched that he was willing to share something so personal. When he asked about her faith, she found herself telling him details she had never spoken of before.
    “My grandparents weren’t religious. I was pretty young when I left, but I remember that not many people in Korea were religious. When I came to America, I was dragged along to Sunday School and church every Sunday and to the children’s missions program most Wednesday nights.”
    Why was she telling him this? Her childhood was an uncomfortable topic. But he had told her personal things, so she felt like she should do the same. “My dad was a deacon at the First Baptist Church. He was real proud of that. But you know what? He was a complete hypocrite. I was his illegitimate child, living proof of his adultery. But he just ignored all that. Taking me in just to show off what a good Christian he was. Everyone in that church seemed to think he was a good man. But living in his house was like living in Hell.”
    Stag reached a hand toward her, but she stared firmly at her knitting. “Sherry, not all Christians are hypocrites.”
    “I know. Some of the people in that church were really nice.” They convinced Sherry that true Christians did exist. But her father wasn’t one of them. His church said that children were a gift from the Lord, but he treated her like garbage. “I became Catholic partly out of rebellion and partly because there’s comfort in the rituals of the church. Whether I go to Mass at St. Joseph’s in Missouri or St. Anne’s in New York, I feel at home. I know where I stand. That’s important to me.”
    Stag listened to her with flattering attention. Except for the first few months they’d been together, LeRoi barely bothered to pretend to be interested in anything she had to say. If Stag weren’t such a stubborn, overbearing, high-handed, sexist bigot, maybe she’d be more willing to accept him.
    There was no clock in the house, but Sherry felt the yawns coming on so she knew it must be bedtime. She glanced covertly at the bed. Of course Stag noticed. He noticed everything she did.
    “Tired?” he asked casually.
    “I’ll sleep here in front of the fire,” she announced.
    He frowned. “The floor will be too cold.”
    “Then you sleep in front of the fire.”
    He got that calmly stubborn look on his face. “I told you, we’ll share the bed. I won’t touch you. I promise you that.”
    Sherry eyed the bed, gauging whether there was room for both of them to lay in it without touching. Would arguing do any good? “I’m not comfortable with that.”
    There, Dixie would be proud to hear her articulate her feelings in such clear, non-argumentative words.
    His eyes looked a darker blue than usual. “If it would make