Lahat ng Kabanata ng I Never Hated You : Kabanata 141 - Kabanata 150

“I have no idea. I don’t think so.” Mark couldn’t worry about that, not right then. If he had broken the laws of the land, he’d accept the consequences, but he was much more concerned about the newfound clarity with which he realized that he’d broken the laws of God. Repeatedly, casually, gratuitously. His brain was spinning, his stomach was whirling. It seemed impossible that all that tumult could occur without somehow bursting out through his thin skin. And the officer was looking at him strangely, but Mark knew that was because of the words he’d said, not the guilt he was hiding. “I need to go,” he said. “I didn’t…”He’d been going to say that he hadn’t hurt Cain, lying there in his hospital bed, but it wasn’t quite true. Mark’s actions had put Cain in that bed, and he couldn’t let himself deny that anymore. “Cain is safe. He’s recovering. If you see him, could you tell him…tell him he can come back to the halfway house. There was some confusion…I thought he was in a fight, somethi

“I think so,” the priest said, and he waited while Lucas climbed into bed and pulled the covers up over his lap. “Now, soup. It’s just from a can—sorry. My wife makes wonderful homemade soup, and if your bruising keeps you from eating solids, I’ll ask her to send some over, but for now, it’s canned.”“Your wife? I thought priests couldn’t get married.”“Catholic priests can’t. I’m Anglican, remember?”“Oh.” Lucas should probably get that figured out at some point, but he didn’t think he wanted to do it right then. He watched, feeling useless, as the priest flipped a set of legs out from the base of the tray and turned it into a low table, just the right height to fit over Lucas’s legs. Apparently the place was set up for in-bed eating, so probably the priest was right that the no-food-in-rooms rule wasn’t absolute. That was reassuring. The priest pulled up a wooden chair and sat in silence while Lucas worked his way through the soup. If he’d been alone, he’d have lifted the bowl to hi

Cain took a deep breath, wincing as it stretched something that had recently been damaged, and said, “I’m sorry,” in a low, husky voice. “For everything. For coming to your house—I didn’t know you worked there.But, you know…for…for your brother, as well. I’m sorry.”Mark wasn’t sure just what to say, and apparently he thought for too long, because Cain stepped backward, obviously believing his presence was unwelcome. “I moved out. You shouldn’t have to change jobs just to stay away from me. That’s not right.”“But where will you go?”“I’ll figure something out.” Cain’s smile was forced, an easily seen-through illusion of confidence, and there was something about it that make Mark want to cry.“It was my fault.” Mark had talked to Terry about this, and they’d decided that Mark shouldn’t confess to Cain, not yet. It was an unneeded burden on the younger man, an action designed to make Mark, not Cain, feel better. But Mark couldn’t stand there in front of the bruised andbattered man an

It was the second night in a row that Mark’s evening at home was interrupted by a phone call, and once again, the person on the other end wanted to talk about Lucas Cain. This time the call was from the police station, not the hospital.“We called Darren Samms first,” the female voice told him. The officer sounded young and not entirely sure of what she was supposed to be doing.“It seemed like a job for a parole officer, for sure. But Darren’s out of town, down in the city at some meeting or something. He said you could probably help.”“I don’t understand,” Mark said. “What is it you expect me to do?”“We’re hoping you can intervene,” she said. “I mean, Cain’s breached his parole in half-a-dozen ways, but he’s done it so blatantly—we learned about this in school, and Darren said he agreed—it’s not uncommon for recent parolees to get overwhelmed by the freedom and deliberately reoffend just as a way to get back inside. That’s pretty clearly what’s going on here. Isn’t it?”Mark was ce

The squirrel was knocking on Lucas’s window. At first he thought he was still asleep and dreaming, but he took a moment to collect himself and realized that he was, in fact, awake, and had, in fact, been awakened by the rodent’s tiny paws tapping at the glass. It was just after dawn, and Lucas had been planning to sleep for another hour or so, but the squirrel obviouslyhad other ideas.“I’m not going to feed you,” Lucas said to the little gray face. “I don’t have any food in the room. And besides, you’re getting fat.”It was true. In the two months that Lucas had been living at the halfway house, the squirrel had developed from a scrawny, scruffy creature to a sleek and sturdy fellow. Partly it was the change of season, Lucas reasoned, but the daily treats had probably contributed as well.“Do you like carrots? Or cucumbers? Something that’s a little less fattening, that’s what you need.”The squirrel cocked its head, then tapped the glass again.“You’re not coming inside,” Lucas sai