Read Leap of Faith for Free Online Page A

sidewalk, as her foreman and the child followed. Marie-Ange didn’t even care now if they took her to the orphanage, it could be no worse than what was happening to her here. Her eyes told a tale of a thousand agonies and few mercies, as they rode back to the farm in silence. And when Marie-Ange saw the familiar barn again, she realized that she was not going to the state institution, not today at least, and perhaps only if she truly annoyed her Aunt Carole.
    She went to her room and put away her old nightgowns and new things from the Goodwill store, and her aunt had lunch ready for her ten minutes later. It was a thin sandwich of ham on bread, with neither mayonnaise nor butter, a glass of milk, and a single cookie. It was as though the old woman begrudged her every bite of food she ate, every crumb she cost her. And it never occurred to Marie-Ange to think of the hundreds of dollars of credit Carole had just gotten at the Goodwill store in exchange for Marie-Ange’s wardrobe. In fact, for the moment at least, Marie-Ange was profitable, rather than costly.
    For the rest of the day, Marie-Ange went about her chores, and didn’t see her aunt again until dinner, and that night the meal was spare again. They had a tiny meat loaf Carole made and some boiled vegetables that tasted awful. The big treat for dessert was green Jell-O.
    Marie-Ange did the dishes afterward, and lay awake in her bed for a long time that night, thinking about her parents, and everything that had happened to her since they died. She could no longer imagine another life now, except one of terror, loneliness, and hunger, and the grief of losing her entire family was so acute that there were times when she thought she couldn’t bear it. And suddenly, as she thought about it, she understood exactly what her father had meant when he called his aunt mean-spirited and small-minded. And she knew that her mother, with all her joy and love and vivaciousness, would have hated Carole even more than he did. But it did her no good to think of that now. She was here, and they were gone, and she had no choice but to survive it.
    They went to church together the next day, driven by Tom again, and the service seemed long and boring to Marie-Ange. The minister talked about hell and adultery and punishment, and a lot of things that either frightened or bored her. She nearly fell asleep at one point, and felt her great-aunt shake her roughly to rouse her.
    Dinner was another grim meal that night, and her great-aunt informed her that she would be going to school in the morning. Carole had been relieved to realize that although she had a noticeable accent when she spoke, Marie-Ange’s English was certainly fluent enough for her to go to school and follow what they were saying to her, although Carole had no idea if she could write it, which she couldn’t.
    “You walk a mile down the road, to a yellow sign,” she said before they went to bed, “after you do your chores in the barn, of course, and the bus will pick you up at the yellow sign at seven. It’s forty miles to the school, and they make a lot of stops along the way. I don’t know how fast you walk, but you’d better leave here at six, and see how long it takes you. You can do your chores at five, and you’d better get up at four-thirty.” She gave her an ancient half-broken alarm clock for that purpose, and Marie-Ange wondered if it came from the Goodwill store. It had been full of tired, broken, ugly things that people had sent there. “The bus will drop you off after school around four, they told me. And I’ll expect you here by five. You can do your chores when you get home and your homework after dinner.” It would be a long day, an exhausting routine, a life of drudgery and near slavery. Marie-Ange wanted to ask her, but didn’t dare, why Tom couldn’t drive her. Instead, she said nothing, and went to bed in silence that night after saying good night to her Aunt Carole.
    It seemed only moments later