Sharyn McCrumb - If I'd Killed Him When I Met Him…

“Sure,” he said, with a perfunctory glance at his appointment book. “I’m free until-well, until Thursday, actually, but something will probably turn up. Let’s go to lunch.”

“How are things with you?” Bill asked, when they had settled into a booth at the restaurant. He hoped that his sister would say, “Fine,” as convention demands, but since those who are ill or otherwise preoccupied with themselves always take this pleasantry as a serious inquiry, Elizabeth spent several minutes answering his greeting in clinical detail.

“I wish you had something for me to do,” she finished plaintively. “I think too much-and there’s really no point in brooding over things I can’t change.”

“Powell has a murder case,” said Bill. “But her client has confessed, so I don’t suppose there’s much to investigate. She may want you to track down character witnesses, though.” He brightened at the thought. “I’ll ask her.”

“A murder case? Anything interesting?”

“Nothing you ought to mention to Mother,” said Bill. “Powell is defending Eleanor Royden, the ex-wife of a Roanoke attorney. She shot and killed her husband and wife number two.”

“Sore loser?”

“Apparently there was some provocation. I don’t know too many of the details.”

Elizabeth lost interest in the domestic murder in Roanoke. “What are you working on?”

“I have a bigamist,” said Bill. “And a bad-check case. A house closing next week. Sorry.”

Elizabeth nodded. She had not expected much drama to come out of Bill’s practice. “The bigamist sounds interesting,” she commented. “I trust you’re not defending him?”

“No. I’m trying to get him to quit,” said Bill. “His original wife is a nice dowdy woman in her fifties, who shouldn’t have to put up with his shenanigans. I hope I don’t turn all peculiar when I hit fifty. You don’t suppose it’s hereditary?”

“Maybe they’ll have a cure for it by then. By the way, have you talked to Mother lately?”

“I guess so,” said Bill, trying to remember. “She’s all right, isn’t she?”

“She’s quite cheerful,” said Elizabeth, not precisely answering the question. “She has a new roommate, and she’d like us both to come over for dinner so that we can get acquainted.”

“A new roommate?” So great was Bill’s distress that he put down his fork to pursue the subject. “It’s not a man, is it?”

“Urn. No.”

“Well, that’s a relief. So who is it?”

“An English professor named Phyllis Casey. I haven’t met her yet myself, but Mother said they get along… um… like a house afire.”

“That’s good to hear. I’m glad the old girl’s perking up again. Maybe they can take macramé classes together. Form a couple for duplicate bridge.”

“A couple. Yes.” Elizabeth seemed inordinately preoccupied with her salad. She hardly looked at him at all. “So, can you make it for dinner on Saturday? I promised I’d let her know.”

“Oh, I guess so,” said Bill. “It’ll be dull, but I’ll bet they’re both great cooks.”

Elizabeth raised her eyebrows. “The evening may surprise you.”

“Well, I’m glad Mother has found a nice woman friend to spend time with, instead of some predatory man in a midlife crisis,” Bill said with a happy smile. “I should have known we could trust Mother to be sensible. But you know me: I always expect the worst.”

Elizabeth gave him a sad smile. “No, Bill. You don’t.”

Chevry Morgan set down his hammer, leaned against the old oak mantelpiece, and wished he had a cold beer. This was not a desire he would share with his parishioners, many of whom felt that Jesus had been unnecessarily frivolous when He turned the water into wine at the wedding at Cana. (“Surely grape juice would have been sufficient, and perhaps some cookies,” as Mrs. Harville of the Senior Ladies’ Circle phrased it.) Still, carpet laying was thirst-making work, and Chevry did not feel that the Lord intended for His servants to avoid the pleasures of the flesh. Who else had He made them for, after all?

A prophet lacking both honor and distilling facilities in his own country, Chevry saw that he would have to make do with well water instead of spirits. Donna Jean had given him sandwiches, but nothing to drink with his evening meal. She had mumbled a gruff apology for forgetting to bring a drink, and he’d let it go-but he suspected that the oversight was intentional. For a meek and God-fearing woman, Donna Jean certainly had been huffy lately. Every time he saw her, she looked like she was about to spit nails. There was no pleasing her. First, she had a hissy fit about chores, demanding that he get his sweet baby Tanya out of the house, and then when, after prayerful consideration, he took steps to do so, Donna Jean fumed about the time and expense of fixing up the new residence. He said he thought she was undergoing a crisis of faith about the Lord’s new revelation, and he suggested that she pray about it. This spiritual counsel was not well received.

Chevry mopped the sweat from his brow with a big cotton handkerchief. It sure was hot in the old house, being after sunset like it was. The tin roof soaked up the sun’s heat and held it for hours. He hoped that boded well for keeping the place warm in winter. He struggled to his feet, trying to ignore the aches in his legs and back. He would have to go to the kitchen and get his own drink. Wasn’t that a hell of a note? A man with two wives has to get his own dad-burned glass of water.

He stumped into the kitchen, feeling sorry for himself, remembering all the envious leers he’d gotten lately from the men in the community. He knew that they must have dirty movies running in their minds when they thought of him and his domestic situation. He was glad they didn’t know better. The truth was, he hadn’t been getting his ashes hauled at all lately. Why, there were probably men in prison who saw more carnal action than he had seen these past few weeks. That wasn’t much of a change as far as Donna Jean was concerned: sex had been boring her shitless for decades, and now that she was furious with him, she was even less inclined to perform that wifely chore. Once, long ago, he had tried to convince Donna Jean that oral sex was a marital variation of Holy Communion, but two days later she had countered with a few pertinent verses from Leviticus. Furthermore, she had threatened to bring up the matter for discussion in church if he persisted in his arguments. Billy Graham took her side in the matter, too; at least, Chevry had always suspected that the letter to Billy Graham’s column in the Roanoke Times had come from Donna Jean.

He took a jelly glass from the sparsely stocked cupboard, blew the dust off it, and turned on the tap. The water ran rusty for half a minute, and he waited for a clear stream before filling his glass. He downed it in one gulp and filled the glass again. Then he splashed cold water on his sweaty face and hands. His backache was worse now. It occurred to him that a man could work so hard on wife maintenance that he could be too tired to reap the pleasures of connubial bliss. He’d be finished renovating this house soon, though, and then his procreative powers would return. Damn, he needed a beer.

The thought of frosty bottles of beer brightened his mood. That was one advantage to having a second home: he could keep beer in it, something Donna Jean would not permit back at the house on Pumpkin Creek. She didn’t hold with imbibing liquor, not even for medicinal purposes. He’d once thought of introducing snake handling into the church services so that he would have an excuse to keep whiskey on the premises, but Donna Jean had put the quietus on that plan, faster than the Lord had deconstructed the Tower of Babel.