Free Found by Shelley Shepard Gray Page A

heard you in here. I thought maybe this time you wouldn’t have to be alone.”
    â€œThis time?” Her mother ran a hand along the thick quilt that covered Perry’s bed. Almost like she was afraid to mess up the green-and-black log cabin design.
    Leaning against the doorframe, Deborah said, “I hear you in here almost every night, Mamm.”
    She clenched her hands in her lap. “I feel closer to him when I come in here. It’s silly, I know. It’s not like Perry invited me in here to chat when he was alive.”
    No, that hadn’t been his way. Perry would have met any person entering his room with a scowl. “Perry liked his privacy,” she said with a smile.
    To her surprise, her mother chuckled. “Indeed, he did. Why, I remember when he was four or five, he told me he no longer needed my help when he showered. He took a towel from my hands and closed the door right in my face.”
    â€œThat sounds like Perry.” Entering the room, Deborah took a seat next to her mom. Never would she have imagined that sitting in his room would help, but it did. There, on the comfy quilt, so much of the anger that always seemed to permeate his spirit dissipated. “I was always surprised Lydia put up with him,” she said lightly.
    â€œHe was different with her, though. He was quieter, kinder.”
    Deborah nodded. That was true. Perry had been different around Lydia. Far more patient and far less self-absorbed. Everyone had commented on how good she was for him. “Frannie wasn’t a good match.”
    Her mother smiled again. “Indeed, she was not.”
    But of course, by the time he courted Frannie, he’d already made the choice to take drugs.
    â€œI saw Jacob Schrock tonight,” Deborah blurted.
    â€œWhat? When?”
    â€œI snuck out,” she said bravely. Deciding to let her guard down a little further. “I saw him walking by our house, so I went outside and talked to him.”
    â€œWhat in the world was he doing in our yard?”
    â€œHe was out walking. He said he was thinking about when he, Perry, and I used to walk to school together.”
    â€œAnd Perry always made you late,” her mother mused.
    â€œI didn’t think you realized that.”
    â€œI realized more than you knew,” she said cryptically. “So . . . what did you do tonight with Jacob?”
    â€œWe walked to the schoolhouse.”
    â€œIn the dark.”
    â€œYeah. He had a flashlight,” Deborah explained. Although truthfully, that explained nothing. She knew that wasn’t what her mother was wondering about.
    Her mother must have thought the same thing. “And?”
    â€œAnd? And nothing.” She shrugged. “We just talked. I know I should have told you I was leaving, but I didn’t want to risk you or Daed telling me no.”
    Her mother glanced at her out of the corner of her eye. “Jacob Schrock is a gut man. He always has been.”
    Deborah shrugged, “Lately, he’s seemed mad at me. Angry.”
    â€œWe’re all dealing with our grief in our own way. Perhaps that was his?”
    â€œMaybe,” Deborah allowed. But that still didn’t feel quite right. “I wish he wouldn’t have taken his anger out on me. I could have used his friendship these last few months.”
    Perhaps it was Deborah’s allusion to how alone she’d felt, or perhaps her mother had just had enough—whatever the reason, her eyes were pained when she stood up. “I know you’re confused, Deborah. But I must admit that we’ve all probably done things we wished we hadn’t.”
    With her words still hanging between them, she wandered out, leaving Deborah sitting on Perry’s bed, wondering yet again when everything was going to start getting easier.
    J acob was still trying to read by flashlight when his mother knocked on his door.
    â€œJacob?” she whispered. “Jacob, are