Free A Bright Tomorrow by Gilbert Morris Page A

and talk to Mrs. Castellano, but her legs were too weak to support her. I’ll sit down and think about what to say , she decided. Maybe I can help with the housework and cooking to pay for my room and board—
    Sinking down on the faded and rather lumpy upholstered chair by the window, she stared out at the rain, which fell in slanting lines. The darkness was complete now, and the yellow gaslight just outside was an orange globe of light, a luminous cloud. There was something hypnotic about the warmth of the room, and she closed her eyes, leaning back with her head against the chair. The rain made a silvery tattoo on the glass, like the brush of angel wings, she thought.
    Without willing them, memories came trooping into her mind, like specters. She thought of her home, the dingy little border town in Texas. It had been a prison to her since early childhood, and she had always disliked the sterile desert and the tawdry streets. But now there was a certain nostalgia in the memory. At least I had a place there!
    There was no place for her in that town now. Her only tie had been her mother—and the thought of her mother brought a stab of grief, sharp and keen. Maria, half Spanish and half Irish, had not been a good woman. Rose had known that much for a long time. A hard drinker, she could not say no to men—a trait which had brought her many beatings from her husband Earl, a slab-sided, pale-eyed man with a cruel mouth.
    The vision of her stepfather brought an involuntary shiver to the girl. He had been prevented from actually molesting her, Rose knew, only by her mother’s dire threats. The very first time Maria caught Earl at it, she had waited until he was asleep and poured scalding water over his chest. He had been so badly burned that it had been two weeks before he recovered enough to take his revenge. Then he had grabbed Maria and hit her.
    â€œGo ahead,” she said, glaring up at him. “Beat me half to death. But sooner or later I’ll get well and I’ll catch you asleep, and then I’ll pour the scalding water on your face !”
    Earl had not beaten her, for he understood that his wife would do exactly as she promised. Maria had added, “Touch Rose one more time, and you’ll have to feel your way around…because your eyes will be burned out!”
    Rose thought of the years after that, when she had felt her stepfather’s pale eyes following her. Mercifully, he had been restrained by his knowledge that Maria would scald him if he bothered her.
    Just then a bolt of lightning split the sky, illuminating the room for an instant, then the thunder cracked, seeming to shake the very foundation of the house. Rose shrank back in the chair and remembered her mother’s funeral, for two weeks ago, it had been interrupted by a thunderstorm just like this one. Her funeral—only two weeks ago!
    Rose seemed to see her mother’s fresh grave, turning slowly to mud as the rain-soaked men shoveled in the dirt. And at once her unwilling mind formed another image of the episode three days later, when her stepfather had come to her room late at night. She seemed to hear the sound of his footsteps again, to hear the door creaking open. And then his voice whispering to her before his groping hands had found her.
    She had screamed and rolled out of the bed, then run wildly toward the door. He had been so drunk he had missed the grab he made at her. Then, when he tried to take the stairs two at a time in pursuit of the terrified girl, he had fallen headlong. Rose had seen him bang his head on the tread, then laboriously crawl to his feet. She could never forget how he had stared at her with his loose mouth and wild eyes. “Go on—run! But I’ll get you! I’ll get you—!”
    He had lumbered off and fallen into a drunken coma, and Rose had crept back to her room, dressed, and packed a suitcase.
    She had saved a little money, enough for a one-way fare to New