The Power of Testimony

SHAWN THORNTON || 15
around town. Otherwise it was too quick, and there was no
time to be together.
“Isn’t the dance going to be fun?” Bev said.
John shrugged. “I don’t dance much. I guess we’ll watch
Chuck and Sue.”
“I think we could try,” Bev offered.
He nodded. There was a silence. “Kentucky, huh?”
“My Aunt Beulah’s farm. It’s always so much fun. They
have farm animals, and my cousins will be there.”
“Pretty far away.”
“A day’s worth, I guess. But it’s a pretty drive.”
John drove on in silence.
“Guess I’ll see you when I get back,” Bev said.
“That’d be nice.”
John was often at a loss for words with Bev. She struck him
as so smart and genuine and promising. John, by contrast, was
disappointing his family’s academic expectations. Classrooms
didn’t fit him well. As a boy, he stared out the windows at
passing airplanes, wondering where the passengers were
going and wishing he could join them. When teachers called
on him, especially in math class, he usually had no answer.
Equations made no sense to him. This surprised his parents
because Wilson Thornton, John’s grandfather, was known for
a geometric algorithm he created in 1951, which was lauded
among mathematicians across the country. Wilson’s name
even appeared in popular geometry textbooks.
John was a different bird. In grade school when the teacher
taught two plus two is four, John’s immediate response was,
“Why? Who says it’s got to be four? Let’s make it five. How