(From the story Ryan Haley’s Revenge)

...Ms. Cooke had always given him simple books to read. Things like Curious George and other children’s texts. One summer day, though, she gave him something else to read. It was long and filled with words that he needed to look up in his ragged dictionary, a gift she gave him when they first started working together. He struggled with it at first, but it quickly grew to be his favorite. It was called The Odyssey by someone named Homer.

There were a lot of good stories in it, but the one that struck him the most, the one that made him think hard and begin asking himself questions about what happened to his mother, was Oedipus’ tale. He didn’t like the part about him returning and sleeping with his mother, that was just wrong, but when he murdered his father…now that seemed to awaken something animal within him. He read and reread that part until he had it memorized. This was what he was destined to do. He wasn’t the brightest person in the world, but it didn’t take a genius to realize that his father had murdered his mother. The more Ryan thought about it, the more sense it made. Why would she just disappear? Where would she go? And why would she leave him behind? It didn’t make any sense.

He sat in his room reading. Reading and thinking. Thinking that maybe she didn’t run off and abandon him. Maybe the only reason that she hadn’t come back for him was because she was dead. Murdered by his pa. Before he could put his plan into action, however, he had to be sure, and that meant confronting his pa.

On a night when he saw that his father wasn’t too drunk, he summoned up courage enough to question him about it. After he had finished asking, his pa stood up and hit him so hard that Ryan thought his teeth might come flying out of his mouth. That night his father beat him so badly, Ryan couldn’t move for a week. He simply lay on his bedroom floor, moaning in pain. Occasionally his pa would throw some food into the room for him, but for the most part he just ignored him. The pain he experienced was incredible, something had probably been broken, but all he could think about was how he couldn’t return The Odyssey to Ms. Cooke. Ryan felt like he had let her down. When he was finally able to stand again, he cleaned himself, hoping to wash away the pain and hurt with scalding hot water. When he was done, though, the bruises were still there. He gathered himself together and tried to cover up most of the damage with a long-sleeved shirt and a pair of ruddy pants. He looked at himself in the mirror and sighed. He looked like a zombie.

At the library Ms. Cooke took one look at his face and grimaced. She shook her head and muttered something inaudible under her breath as she took the book from his hands. Then she did something that he didn’t expect her to do—she smiled.

“Did you enjoy the book, Ryan?” she asked.

He nodded.

Her smile broadened.

“Sometimes life isn’t fair, Ryan. And sometimes…” She lightly fingered the binding of the book. “Sometimes it isn’t about fair at all. Sometimes it’s about what’s right.”

He stood there with a blank look on his face.

“What I mean to say is, that when Oedipus was wronged by his father, he handled it the best way he knew how.”

He nodded, slow comprehension spreading over his dull mind.

“And sometimes the best way to handle things is by following your heart. Follow your heart, Ryan, and no one will fault you.”

She pointed toward the front door. “I can’t let you in here anymore, but I want you to keep this book as a gift. Remember, follow your heart.”