Рита Браун - Claws And Effect

Her aunt, Tally Urquhart, flying along in her nineties, said to Mim constantly, "Change is life." Sometimes Mim understood and sometimes she didn't. Usually she thought change involved other people, not herself.

"You haven't been a fool. You've done a lot of good in this life," Miranda truthfully told her.

Mim looked at her directly, light eyes bright. "But have I been good to myself? I want for nothing. I suppose in that way I've been good to myself but in other ways, I've treated myself harshly. I've suppressed things, I've put off others, I've throttled my deepest emotions." She patted a tear away with an embroidered linen handkerchief. "And now he's gone. I can never make it up to him."

The years allowed Miranda to be brutally direct. "Would you? He was in his seventies. Would you?"

Mim cried anew. "Oh, I wish I could say yes. I wish I had done a lot of things. Why didn't you tell me?"

"Tell you? Mim, no one can tell you anything. You tell us."

"But you know me, Miranda. You know how I am."

"It's been a long road, hasn't it? Long and full of surprises." She breathed in deeply. "If it was meant to be, it was meant to be. You and Larry." She gazed into the fire for a moment. "What a long time ago that was. You were beautiful. I envied you, your beauty. Never the money. Just the beauty. And he was handsome in his naval uniform."

"Somewhere along the way we grew old." Mim dropped a bejeweled hand on her breast. "I'm not quite sure how." She sat up. "Miranda, I will find who killed Larry. I will pursue him to the ends of the earth like the harpies pursued Orestes. With God as my witness, I swear it."

"The Lord will extract His vengeance. You go about your business, Mimsy. Whoever did this wouldn't stop at killing you either. They hit Harry on the head."

"Yes, her story sounded fishy."

Miranda shut her eyes. It had popped out of her mouth, and after she'd promised Harry not to tell. "Oh, me. Well, the cat's out of the bag. Harry snooped in the basement of the hospital and someone cracked her on the noggin. It's supposed to be a secret and I, well, you can keep a secret-obviously."

"Funny, isn't it? We live cheek by jowl, everyone knows everyone in Crozet, and yet each of us carries secrets-sometimes to the grave."

"People say we should be honest, we should tell the truth, but they aren't ready to hear it," Miranda sagely noted.

"Mother certainly wasn't," Mim simply said.

"Well, dear, Jim Sanburne was quite a payback."

A slight smile played over Mim's lips. "Damn near killed her. Aunt Tally understood but then Aunt Tally understands more than the rest of us. She keeps reminding me, too."

"Why did you marry Jim?"

"He was big, handsome, a take-charge guy. An up-and-comer as Dad would say. Of course, he came from the lower orders. That killed Mother but by then I'd learned."

"What?"

"I'd learned to just go ahead. The hell with everybody. I knew she wasn't going to cut me out of the will."

"But did you love him?"

A long, long silence transpired; then Mim leaned back. "I wanted to be in love. I wanted, well, I wanted the things you want when you're young. I never loved Jim the way I loved Larry. He's a different sort of man. You know, those early years I'd see Larry driving to work at the hospital, driving back to his private practice, at the country club with Bella. At first the sight of him hurt me because I was wrong. I knew I was wrong. But he always said he forgave me. I was young. I wasn't quite twenty, you know, when I fell in love with Larry. He was so kind. I think a little part of me died when he got married but I understood. And-" She opened her hands as though they might have contained treasure. "What could I do?"

"Love never dies. The people die but love is eternal. I believe that with all my heart and soul. And I believe God gives us chances to love again."

"If you envy me my looks, I envy you your faith."

"You can't reason your way to faith, Mim. You just open your heart."

"As we both know, I haven't been too good at that. I sometimes wonder if I would have been a more loving woman had I rebelled earlier against my family and married Larry. I think I would have. I closed off. I became guarded. I lost myself along the way. Now I've lost him. You see, even though we weren't lovers anymore, even though we lived separate lives, I knew he was there. I knew he was there." She cried harder now. "Oh, Miranda, I loved him so."

Miranda rose from her chair to sit on the edge of the sofa. She took Mim's hand in both of hers. "Mimsy, he knew you loved him."

"In time, Jim knew, too. I think that's why he redefined the word 'unfaithful'-well, that and the fact that he wearied of me bossing him around. It's rather difficult for a man when the wife has all the money. I think it's difficult in reverse, too, but the culture supports it, plus we've been raised to be simpletons. Really." Mim's modulated voice wavered. "That, too, was one of the things I loved about Larry. He respected my mind."

"It's like that Amish saying, 'We grow too soon old and too late smart.'" Miranda smiled. "But Jim grew out of it or he grew old. I don't know which."

"Breast cancer. Scared both of us. I believe that's when Jim came back to me, realized he loved me and maybe we'd both been foolish. Well, that's all behind me. My cancer hasn't recurred in five years' time nor has Jim's unfaithfulness." She smiled slightly. She sighed. "What did Jim say when you spoke to him? I don't remember. I know you told me but I don't even remember you driving me here."

"He said to call him if you needed him. He was going straight to Twisted Creek Stables." She let go of Mim's hand, reached over to the coffee table, and brought up Mim's cup. "This really will make you feel a little better."

Mim drank, handed the cup back to Miranda. "Thank you."

"I wouldn't want to be in Sheriff Shaw's shoes right now."

"I mistakenly assumed this had nothing to do with us." She made a dismissive gesture with her hand. "When Hank Brevard was found with a slit throat I thought it was brutal, but Hank lacked the fine art of endearing himself to others. That someone would finally kill him didn't seem too far-fetched. One had only to find the reason. But now-everything's different now."

"Yes." Miranda nodded.

"I think of death as an affront. I know you don't. You think you'll join up with Jesus. I hope you're right."

"'For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, says the Lord God; so turn and live.' Ezekiel, chapter eighteen, verse thirty-two. Turn and live," Miranda emphasized.

"You've changed, too, Miranda."

"I know. After George's death the church was my comfort. Perhaps I tried too strenuously to comfort others." A smile played on her lips. "It all takes time."

"And Tracy." Mim mentioned Miranda's high-school boyfriend, who had returned to her life but was currently in Hawaii selling his home.

"I feel alive again. And you will, too. We need to think of something to do to honor Larry, something he would have loved."

"I thought I'd establish a scholarship at the University of Virginia Medical School in his name-for family practice."