The Sookie Stackhouse Companion

stink bomb, not something that would actually physically harm Sam’s family, I never did feel bad about it afterward. In fact, in a savage kind of way I was glad I’d broken a bone.
    This was the new me. Though I could regret I’d changed, it was a done deal. I couldn’t regenerate the tenderhearted me. I didn’t know how much of this alteration in my character was due to the blood bond I shared with a big, unscrupulous Viking and how much of it was due to the torture I’d undergone . . . but I wasn’t exactly the same nice person, as this boy had just found out.
    He screamed in pain, and people came running from all over, both his buddies and the Merlotte family and their friends, and then the police, both in and out of uniform, and it was all chaos for a good forty minutes.
    Since Mindy had been standing there while the boy came in the back door—and when he was blubbering in pain, he himself admitted it—I was in the clear.
    In fact, his hastily summoned parents were absolutely horrified, didn’t try to dodge the facts or excuse his actions. They were stand-up people, which was a huge relief, because the boy was Nathan Arrowsmith, the only child of the Reverend and Mrs. Bart Arrowsmith. Talk about your touchy situation.
    What did Sam’s family do? Sam’s family had a prayer meeting.
    My gran had been a religious woman, and I liked to think of myself as a striving Christian. (Lately, I’d been more striving than Christian.) But we’d never had a family prayer circle. So I felt a little self-conscious about standing in the living room holding hands with Doke and Sam while all of us bowed our heads and prayed out loud, one by one.
    Bernie identified herself to God, which I thought was kind of unnecessary, and then asked God to make her enemies see the light of tolerance. Mindy asked that God grant his blessing to the wedding and keep it peaceful. Craig very manfully asked God to forgive Nathan Arrowsmith and those who had conspired with him. Mason asked God to give him back his baseball bat. (I winced at that one.) Doke asked God to cure the hatred growing in the people of Wright. I asked God to restore peace in our hearts, which was something we all needed. Sam put in a request for the safety of everyone involved in the wedding. Bonnie got too self-conscious to say anything and started crying—pretty understandable in a three-year-old.
    I felt a little better afterward, and I think the family did, too. It was definitely time to get ready to go over to the church again, and for the second time that day I retreated to the guest/sewing room to get dressed. I put on the sleeveless blue dress I’d borrowed from Tara. I wore Gran’s pearl necklace and earrings and the black heels. I pulled my hair off my face with a pearl comb—also Gran’s—and left it loose. All I’d had to buy was a lipstick.
    Sam wore a suit, lightweight blue seersucker. When I emerged, we looked at each other speechlessly.
    “We clean up pretty good,” I said, smiling at him.
    He nodded. And I could tell he was thinking that Jannalynn would have worn something really extreme, and his family wouldn’t have liked it. I felt a twinge of irritation with Sam. Why was he dating her, again? I was beginning to feel sorry for the girl. All weekend, Sam had been glad he hadn’t brought her to meet his family. What kind of relationship was that? Not one founded on mutual respect.
    When we came out to go to the church, Jim Collins was standing in his yard holding a sign that read NO ANIMAL MARRIAGES IN HUMAN CHURCHES. Offensive, yes. Illegal, no.
    I hadn’t forgotten from which direction Nathan Arrowsmith had come with his stink bomb.
    I stopped on my way to Sam’s truck. I took a step off the driveway. I caught Jim Collins’s eyes. He wanted to look away, but he didn’t. He thought his pride required that he meet my gaze. He was full of hate and anger. He missed Don, thought Don was right to shoot Bernie since in Jim’s view she’d been a faithless liar. He knew Bernie hadn’t cheated on her husband, but concealing what she really was counted in his book. The constant pain that nagged at Jim Collins’s joints made his mind restless and angry. Advanced arthritis.
    I said, “You’re alone, and lonely, and miserable, and you’ll stay that way until you get rid of all that hate.” And I turned, walked away, and met Sam at the truck.
    Sam said, “Feel better, Sookie?”
    I said, “That wasn’t a good thing to do. I know. I’m