Dew Drop Dead by James Howe Page A

Abraham who needed watching.
    From her father’s office she heard him being led away. He was howling, all gibberish and senseless rage. And then, as her father held her and she tried, unsuccessfully, to hold back her tears, she heard him cry out:
    â€œI am Isaac! I am Abraham! I am Isaac!”

30
    CORRIE ACCEPTED an invitation to David’s house for dinner that night. She didn’t really want to go, but she didn’t want to be home either. She told Sebastian she didn’t know what she wanted, except for this day never to have happened.
    Now she sat, her plate barely touched, half-listening to Rachel prattle on about her new exercise regimen.
    â€œSee, it’s like a cross between Jane Fonda and Richard Simmons,” she said, crunching a raw carrot.
    â€œI shudder to think,” said Josh. “Mouth closed, please.”
    Rachel continued through clenched teeth, chewing like a rabbit. “Me and my friend Lindsay—”
    Josh said, “My friend Lindsay and I.”
    â€œDaddy!”
    â€œOkay, okay.”
    â€œMe and my friend Lindsay put it together. See, we have these charts we made and ...”
    Corrie closed her eyes. She tried to imagine where Abraham was now; she saw him in handcuffs, in a cell, alone. Her throat burned as if it had beenrubbed raw with sandpaper. She wondered how the others could swallow.
    Sebastian bumped her knee with his. Opening her eyes, she tried, in vain, to smile. Josh caught the exchange and said, “Rachel, I think we’ve heard enough about you and your friend Jane.”
    â€œLindsay.”
    â€œWhatever. Let’s give somebody else a chance to talk, okay?”
    â€œHow’s your book going?” Sebastian asked, latching onto the first thing that came to mind.
    Josh brightened. “Great!” he said. “Sebastian, since I got this idea, I’m a new man. The writing is just pouring out of me. Today I wrote a scene where a body is found in a window seat—okay, so I stole it from a play I saw once—but I’m telling you, it had me in tears, it was so funny.”
    â€œHow can you?” Corrie muttered.
    Josh looked up, startled. “Sorry?” he said. “Oh, maybe we should talk about something else.”
    â€œIt’s not talking about it that I mean,” Corrie said, keeping her eyes on her plate even as her voice rose. “It’s your writing it. There’s nothing funny about murder.”
    â€œNot real murder, no.”
    â€œNot any murder.” She dared to raise her eyes and use them to accuse Josh. “Murder is the taking of life,” she said. “How can you make that funny?People dying, people . . . people hurting so much they kill somebody, how can you turn that into . . . entertainment? That man was killed at the inn, Josh, really killed, and they’re saying maybe Abraham did it, even though he didn’t, I know he didn’t; and you take what really happened and you call it an idea and give it a funny title and make money from it. From other people’s pain.” Her voice was shaking now. “I don’t know how you can do that, Josh. ‘Dew Drop Dead.’ Someone did drop dead, and it isn’t funny!”
    She looked down at her plate again. The sight of the cold food turned her stomach, so she closed her eyes and breathed in slowly, counting the way she did when she ran. The room fell silent, except for the ticking of the clock. It made her think of the grandfather clock in the hallway of the inn and she bit into her lip so hard she wondered if she’d made it bleed.
    â€œCorrie,” Josh said, “maybe this isn’t the best time for this conversation. I know you’re feeling bad about what happened. And it is a tragedy. But I’m not going to apologize for what I do. I want you to know that I don’t confuse real suffering with the stuff that’s found in books and movies. Nothing I can write—I