The one about the Grisham character

I hated reading.  Guam’s power had always been splotchy.  

At best, I skimmed Johnny Tremain, Romeo and Juliet, and Catcher in the Rye.  Guam Power Authority announced the power problem was fixed.

I moved to Guam in 1994.  My mom sent me Patricia Cornwell, John Sandford, and John Grisham books.  The pages curled as they sat in the box she sent them for the first month or so.  The power was stable.

And then a brown tree snake shorted itself across a transformer.  And the island lost power for about eight hours.  I eyed the box of books, but was able to pass the time with walking up and down stairs.  I tossed a baseball to myself.  I looked at baseball card magazines.

GPA fixed the problem and the next day, another snake shorted itself across another transformer.  We entered our power sharing days.  A couple of hours a day, we lost power.

Haltingly, I picked up the box of books.

The protagonist needed help solving his case.  He went to a swarthy, wrinkled man and told him about the case.  The man, who was always an alcoholic, grabbed his new bottle of bourbon, twisted off the cap, and threw the cap in the trash.  The protagonist winced.

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We’re in Indiana now; warm, humid summers.  Anna and Zach love getting out.  They ran to me the other day and held out their bubbles for me to open.  I twisted off the caps and put them away.  And I smiled.