Read Catch Me When I Fall for Free Online Page A

Danish. Sallow-faced and anxious, she played with a strand of her dark hair.
    â€œMine won’t.” His words were matter-of-fact, but shame simmered beneath them.
    â€œNot ever? Don’t they want a grandchild?”
    â€œNot a Jewish grandchild.” He watched her expression turn cold.
    â€œAnti-Semitism is really uncool these days—don’t your parents know that?” She flung the words like hailstones.
    â€œIt’s not personal—” But she was stomping from the room.
    In science class, Naomi sat two desks in front of him. Mr. Peet was delivering his Fabulous Fact of the Day, something about the exotic ecosystems a scientist had found in sulfuric sinkholes. Only Clara Watson was paying attention. Eustace sent a note to Naomi when Mr. Peet turned to sketch a geo-thermal vent on the board. “Can we talk after school?” She crumpled it without reading it and tossed it on the floor. Behind him, Rodney snickered.
    On his way to his locker, Miss Zylstra stopped him. Her plump face beamed. “I just read your essay,” she said. “You may not be a poet, but my goodness you’re good at explaining things.” She looked so pleased with him that he smiled back at her. She was way too nice. So nice that when you took advantage of her you felt bad afterwards. Even Matthew Post didn’t give her a hard time the way he did other teachers. “I completely understood how a hay-bailer works after reading your work. Amazing. I hope you’re planning on going to university next year.” She paused briefly, and he made a noncommittal shrug, which she seemed to think was embarrassment. “The world’s your oyster, Eustace! Oh, there’s Clara. I needed to talk to her too.” Miss Zylstra turned and sped across the hall, the speed remarkable given her round frame and the heels she wore.
    For an impetuous moment Eustace thought of following her and asking her advice. She would be kind. There was that time in grade ten when he had missed three homework assignments in a row. “I need to call your parents,” she had said, looking sorry.
    â€œPlease, Miss, don’t.” His heart had lurched like their John Deere with the bad clutch. “I’ll do all of them tonight.”
    â€œAre your parents fierce about homework, Eustace?”
    â€œAbout everything,” he’d admitted.
    â€œMaybe it’s their way of showing love?” She’d peered at him, kind blue eyes hopeful. He had just shrugged. “Well, don’t worry. You get this work done by Monday, and we’ll keep this between us.” And there hadn’t been another word about it. That’s how she was. Knew how to forgive. Forgive and forget.
    Only you couldn’t forget a baby. And he was going to have to marry Naomi against his parents’ wishes. He’d done wrong, and now there was no clear right. The sheer weight of his situation seemed to pull his shoes into the tile floor, a force far greater than gravity holding him fast.
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    When he shuffled into the mudroom after chores, his mom sat at the kitchen table, bent over the genealogy charts she bought after the bees, her last project, had abandoned her. The hives stood rotting in the north pasture, a little ghost town beside some scraggly pines. She had forbidden tearing them down: “The bees might come back.” Her order was pointless anyway, he thought. No one tidied up on their farm.
    She was singing as she worked. “‘Jesus bids us shine like a pure, clear light, like a lit-tle can-dle burning in the night—’” Because they had no computer, Beatrice’s only resources for the charts were an old family Bible and a couple of books she’d ordered through the mail—total rip-offs, in his opinion. But they kept her from her other pastime, which was tending the roadside grave of her beloved cat Tabitha. He felt both sadness and