“It was odd how you could love something so much, but forget about it when it wasn’t right under your nose.”
“Yeah?” “I miss the way you taste.” She tried to sound bored. “It’s still Colgate.” “That’s not the taste I was talking about.”
“This sheriff goes into a saloon and says, “I’m lookin’ for a cowboy wearing a brown paper vest and brown paper pants.’ He waited a beat, making sure Sara was listening. ‘The bartender says, “What’s he wanted for?” And the sheriff says, “Rustling.”
“Okay. Good.’ He fumbled for his keys and held them out to her, but she did not take”
“As if they could understand what she had been through. As if they knew what it was like to be strong and invincible one day and completely powerless the next.”
“Sure, okay, I'll pick up some cat litter. Anything else?"
"Watch your back, G." Then she hung up.
Hero paused in her sobbing to look at me quizzically. "Why does your mom want cat litter? You guys don't even have a cat."
"She uses it for..." I searched my brain madly, but all I could come up with was "teaching."
"She uses cat litter to teach English?"
I nodded. "She's kind of unconventional in her methods."
Hero frowned. "But how does she use it?"
The girl was relentless when she fixated on something. "Um, when their papers are really bad, she gives them a little bag of cat litter. It's her way of telling them their writing is crap." I laughed. "She's kooky.”
“The sciences have two extremities which meet. The first is the ignorance in which men find themselves at birth. The second is that attained by great souls. They have surveyed whatever man can know, find that they know all, meet in that same ignorance whence they started. It is a clever ignorance, which knows itself. Those among them who, having emerged from the first ignorance, have been unable to achieve the other & have some smattering of this self-satisfied knowledge, pose as experts. The latter do not disturb people, are no more mistaken in their judgments on everything than others. The masses, the skilled, make up the retinue of a nation. The others, who respect it, are equally respected by it.”
“Daddy didn't say anything for a minute or so, and then he reached up and caught a firefly as it glowed beside him. "See this light?" he asked me when the firefly lit up his hand.
"Yes'r."
"That light is bright enough to light up a little speck of the night sky so a man can see it a ways away. That's what God expects us to do. We're to be lights in the dark, cold days that are this world. Like fireflies in December.”
“Dr. Martin Luther King said, ‘If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare composed poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, “Here lived a great street sweeper, who did his job well.”
“Noah." Grace sounded as though she was strangling. "Why don't you just paint a big red A on my forehead, for heaven's sake?"
He grinned. Grace was more prickly than usual, and Noah hoped part of that mood was caused by sexual frustration. She wanted him, but he'd deliberately kept her from knowing what he'd ask of her. He'd hoped to heighten her anticipation, and help her forget some of her nervousness.
"Gracie, you're the one who announced to all and sundry that you'd taken advantage of me. What difference does it make if Graham knows your intent?"
She mumbled again and punched the elevator button.
Making no attempt to hide his good humor, Noah asked, "What was that, Grace?"
The elevator doors slid open and he allowed Grace to yank him inside. As the doors shut behind them, she glared, and her brown eyes smoldered. Indicating her clothes, she said, "I'd at least like to look presentable while ruining my reputation.”
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