Free The Cure by Athol Dickson Page B

thought of going out to talk to her. He truly did consider it for half an instant, because Henry was correct: she was too young. He had the best of intentions, but his body would not move. Paralyzed by the enormity of his offense, all Riley Keep could do was think that someone ought to stop her; someone ought to tell her she should slow it down a little, try to wait until the time was right; someone ought to say she could not possibly be ready; she would only ruin it for when she was, and please, please, please won’t you stay a little girl a little longer?
    But there was no one who could speak that way to her, not a pharmacist, not a middle-aged stock boy—certainly not Riley—so he stood and watched her go while thinking of those things, and of how beautiful she was, how much time he had let pass, how desperately he longed to have that time again, how impossible that was, how hopeless, how vast and unforgivable the nature of his crime.
    His thoughts reached back into a tranquil village he had gained for God and lost to the devil, and that image glowed with stained-glass radiance on bridal lace and merged into a single drop of water trickling down a christened daughter’s forehead. He thought of Bree and of Hope, not in two dimensions tucked back in the corners of his mind but real and out there just beyond his reach. Then all in an instant he remembered Henry, not only as a pharmacist, but also as the pastor of the church right down the street, the man who had married Hope and him, and christened Bree to God; and Riley realized his dear friend Brice had once worked in this very stockroom for Henry’s father, long before his old friend had grown up to be a plumber and a drunk; and here he was himself, Riley Keep, once a minister, a missionary, a teacher of young people at Bowditch College, doing the same job Brice had done after school when they had been as young as Bree.
    Long after the girl had left the building Riley Keep stared at the fuzzy shapes beyond the stockroom window. Then he remembered where he was and what he should be doing. He took a deep breath and pushed the swinging door and passed into a world where some might think they saw him clearly even though he was nothing but a ghost.
    With the hesitation of a blind man in an unfamiliar room he went stoop-shouldered down the aisle until he found the proper spot. He knelt to get the box unpacked and merchandised like Henry the pharmacist and part-time pastor told him he should do, but he was not really there, not really doing what it seemed. His glimpse of Bree had unleashed a relentless avalanche, tumbling memories of appalling failures rolling over him all that morning and afternoon, right up until five o’clock had come and gone, crushing Riley down into himself so deeply that he could not notice what had happened, not until that night when he lay down on a musty mattress in the homeless shelter after a meager supper of chicken soup and freeze-dried mashed potatoes and it suddenly occurred to him he did not have the empty caved-in feeling anymore, not even just a little. In fact, although the landslide of Riley Keep’s pathetic history still threatened to bury him, he had not even thought about a drink all day. The enormity of that was unbelievable, so at first he told himself there must be some mistake, but he thought about it long into the night and no matter how he turned it in his mind, in the end it really did seem he was completely, inexplicably, and astonishingly cured.

C HAPTER N INE
    W ILLA N EWDALE PASSED A STAINLESS LADLE underneath the faucet of the three-compartment sink, scalding her right hand. With a cry of pain she dropped the ladle and jerked her hand back from the water. She crossed to the freezer, shaking her head with frustration, and removed a small chunk of ice to soothe her wound. Willa knew she couldn’t last much longer. She had not slept in forty hours. She had no place to sleep, unless it was out on the streets like those she