Read Shine (Short Story) for Free Online

And I near passed out, but Lonnie, she caught me and she told me we had to get away. We were gonna leave town and go somewhere things like this never happened—”
    Just then, Mama came into the bedroom. “What on earth is going on here?” she demanded, as Ruth slipped the newspaper clipping under her leg. Mama sniffed the air and frowned, taking the whiskey bottle and the shot glass off Granny’s nightstand. “What kind of example you setting?” she chided, and to Ruth she said, “That’s enough. You leave Granny to get some rest.” As Ruth curled the newspaper clipping into her hand, Mama pulled back the covers and took off Granny’s shoes, helping her get to bed. “Why you telling Ruth about all that?” Mama said. “She’s a baby!”
    By now Granny was slurring her words. “Them crackas wasn’t shit,” she muttered. “We left town and didn’t look back. We left before Jerald even got buried.”
    Ruth hid the newspaper clipping underneath her mattress. Sometimes she would take it out and look at it, but the image was grainy and she couldn’t connect that poor man with the one in a suit and tie who had stood for a formal photo holding Granny’s arm like it was made of fine china. She couldn’t imagine the man twisting on that rope picking out carnations and baby’s breath for a pretty corsage.
    Sometimes at night, Ruth would wonder: If not for the KKK, would Granny have stayed in Mississippi and married Jerald? If not for the KKK, would Ruth even be here?
    —
    “Go!” Mr. Yorkey shouted, and Ruth did.
    She pivoted on her foot, and instead of running the mile to get a gold certificate of presidential fitness, she threw herself at Maia, yanking at her glossy ponytail, rolling with her on the floor until Ruth had her pinned down, one forearm across Maia’s collarbones while the other hand drew back in a fist.
    “Go ahead,” Maia dared. “Punch me.”
    Ruth was so surprised, she hesitated.
    “Because then you’ll just wind up cleaning toilets like your mother.”
    Ruth could feel her heart beating so hard, it was practically external. She was sweating, her hair coming out of its elastic to curl natural around her face. It was like Cinderella all over again, turning back into her rags with her pumpkin.
    She let go of Maia abruptly and walked away from her, her back to the rest of the class, which had gone absolutely silent watching the show.
    Mr. Yorkey grasped her arm firmly. “Ruth,” he said, “would you like to go sit down and control your emotions?”
    She faced the gym teacher. “No,” Ruth said honestly, because what she really wanted to do was smack Maia. What she really wanted to do was go back in time ten minutes to the moment before Maia had said anything. Or maybe further—say, two months—before she had ever set foot in this school.
    “Go to the program director’s office,” Mr. Yorkey said tightly. “Now.”
    —
    The director of First Program at Dalton was a very thin woman named Mrs. Grau-Lerner, who smelled of mothballs and peppermint. Ruth, who had never been sent to the principal’s office in her life, was shivering.
    “Do you know what you did wrong, Ruth?” Mrs. Grau-Lerner asked.
    Ruth shook her head. She hadn’t hit Maia, although she had wanted to, so why was she being punished?
    “Not only were you involved in an altercation…you also were rude to Mr. Yorkey.”
    Ruth looked up at her. She thought Mr. Yorkey had been asking her a question. She didn’t realize it was actually a test.
    If Mr. Yorkey had wanted her to sit down and cool off, he should have told her so. Had it been Mama, for example, she would have said,
Do your homework
. No wiggle room there, just a direct order. Instead, Mr. Yorkey had given Ruth a choice, and now she was being disciplined for taking it.
    “Mrs. Grau-Lerner, Maia said—”
    The woman held up her hand. “Ruth,” she replied, “we don’t blame others at Dalton. We take responsibility for our own actions.”
    Ruth looked