I hate reading.
No, it's not that I hate reading itself because I love stories. Stories that take me somewhere outside of my miserable life. Life in Montrose is as boring as it gets and since Mom hardly ever lets me out of her sight since "it" happened. Granny lives with us and she's blind but loves the Good Book so guess who has the lovely job of reading Scripture to her EVERYDAY? That would be yours truly. Well, she's sweet to me though she's not too keen on Mom as Adela -- Granny -- is my loser father's mother. He walked out on us six months ago and Granny blames Mom, but I don't feel that's entirely fair.
Anyway, I read to her after the breakfast dishes are cleared up and put in the sink. We're in the Psalms now and Granny says she loves my voice and how I put feeling into the laments of David, who was probably a bigger sinner than me but God spared him. I try to focus on the Lord's words for Granny's sake because she has nothing but Mom and me and she calms down when I take her by the hand through the Valley of the Shadow of Death but we come out on the other side.
She loves me so much, so she says. I can't let her down because she talked me into staying alive after my bad sin. I can't help it. I see them out there while I'm reading words of peace and love and they want me to follow them to do bad things. I couldn't help it one day and put the Bible down and said to my granny that I had to go check on something outside.
I followed them . . . we went into the woods. . . .