Karin Slaughter: Faithless

“Except the cooking sherry,” Sara told her, sitting down opposite Bella. “Did you know you can’t buy alcohol on Sunday?”

“Yes,” Cathy said, making the word sound like an accusation. “That’s why I told you to go to the store last night.”

“I’m sorry,” Sara apologized. She took a slice of orange from her aunt. “I was dealing with an insurance company out west until eight o’clock. It was the only time we could talk.”

“You’re a doctor,” Bella stated the obvious. “Why on earth do you have to talk to insurance companies?”

“Because they don’t want to pay for the tests I order.”

“Isn’t that their job?”

Sara shrugged. She had finally broken down and hired a woman full-time to jump through the various hoops the insurance companies demanded, but still, two to three hours of every day Sara spent at the children’s clinic were wasted filling out tedious forms or talking to, sometimes yelling at, company supervisors on the phone. She had started going in an hour earlier to try to keep on top of it, but nothing seemed to make a dent.

“Ridiculous,” Bella murmured around a slice of orange. She was well into her sixties, but as far as Sara knew, she had never been sick a day in her life. Perhaps there was something to be said for chain-smoking and drinking tequila until dawn after all.

Cathy rummaged through the bags, asking, “Did you get sage?”

“I think so.” Sara stood to help her find it but Cathy shooed her away. “Where’s Tess?”

“Church,” Cathy answered. Sara knew better than to question her mother’s disapproving tone. Obviously, Bella knew better, too, though she raised an eyebrow at Sara as she handed her another slice of orange. Tessa had passed on attending the Primitive Baptist, where Cathy had gone since she and Bella were children, choosing instead to visit a smaller church in a neighboring county for her spiritual needs. Under normal circumstances Cathy would have been glad to know at least one of her daughters wasn’t a godless heathen, but there was obviously something that bothered her about Tessa’s choice. As with so many things lately, no one pushed the issue.

Cathy opened the refrigerator, moving the milk to the other side of the shelf as she asked, “What time did you get home last night?”

“Around nine,” Sara said, peeling another orange.

“Don’t spoil lunch,” Cathy admonished. “Did Jeffrey get everything moved in?”

“Almo-” Sara caught herself at the last minute, her face blushing crimson. She swallowed a few times before she could speak. “When did you hear?”

“Oh, honey,” Bella chuckled. “You’re living in the wrong town if you want people to stay out of your business. That’s the main reason I went abroad as soon as I could afford the ticket.”

“More like find a man to pay for it,” Cathy wryly added.

Sara cleared her throat again, feeling like her tongue had swollen to twice its size. “Does Daddy know?”

Cathy raised an eyebrow much as her sister had done a few moments ago. “What do you think?”

Sara took a deep breath and hissed it out between her teeth. Suddenly, her father’s earlier pronouncement about dirt sticking made sense. “Is he mad?”

“A little mad,” Cathy allowed. “Mostly disappointed.”

Bella tsked her tongue against her teeth. “Small towns, small minds.”

“It’s not the town,” Cathy defended. “It’s Eddie.”

Bella sat back as if preparing to tell a story. “I lived in sin with a boy. I was barely out of college, just moved to London. He was a welder, but his hands… oh, he had the hands of an artist. Did I ever tell you-”

“Yes, Bella,” Cathy said in a bored singsong. Bella had always been ahead of her time, from being a beatnik to a hippie to a vegan. To her constant dismay, she had never been able to scandalize her family. Sara was convinced one of the reasons her aunt had left the country was so she could tell people she was a black sheep. No one bought it in Grant. Granny Earnshaw, who worked for women’s suffrage, had been proud of her daughter’s brazen attitude and Big Daddy had called Bella his “little firecracker” to anyone who would listen. As a matter of fact, the only time Bella had ever managed to shock any of them was when she had announced she was getting married to a stockbroker named Colt and moving to the suburbs. Thankfully, that had lasted only a year.

Sara could feel the heat of her mother’s stare bore into her like a laser. She finally relented, asking, “What?”

“I don’t know why you won’t just marry him.”

Sara twisted the ring around her finger. Jeffrey had been a football player at Auburn University and she had taken to wearing his class ring like a lovesick girl.

Bella pointed out the obvious, as if it was some sort of enticement. “Your father can’t stand him.”

Cathy crossed her arms over her chest. She repeated her question to Sara. “Why?” She waited a beat. “Why not just marry him? He wants to, doesn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“Then why not say yes and get it over with?”

“It’s complicated,” Sara answered, hoping she could leave it at that. Both women knew her history with Jeffrey, from the moment she fell in love with him to their marriage to the night Sara had come home early from work to find him in bed with another woman. She had filed for divorce the next day, but for some reason, Sara was unable to let him go.

In her defense, Jeffrey had changed over the last few years. He had grown into the man she had seen the promise of almost fifteen years ago. The love she had for him was new, in its way more exciting than the first time. Sara didn’t feel that giddy, I’m-going-to-die-if-he-doesn’t-call-me sort of obsession she had experienced before. She felt comfortable with him. She knew at the end of the day that he would be there for her. She also knew after five years of living on her own that she was miserable without him.

“You’re too proud,” Cathy said. “If it’s your ego-”

“It’s not my ego,” Sara interrupted, not knowing how to explain herself and more than a little resentful that she felt compelled to. It was just her luck that her relationship with Jeffrey seemed to be the only thing her mother felt comfortable talking about.

Sara went to the sink to wash the orange off her hands. Trying to change the subject, she asked Bella, “How was France?”

“French,” Bella answered, but didn’t give in that easily. “Do you trust him?”

“Yes,” she said, “more than the first time, which is why I don’t need a piece of paper telling me how I feel.”

Bella was more than a little smug when she said, “I knew you two would get back together.” She pointed a finger at Sara. “If you were serious about getting him out of your life the first time, you would’ve quit your coroner job.”

“It’s just part-time,” Sara said, though she knew Bella had a point. Jeffrey was chief of police for Grant County. Sara was the medical examiner. Every suspicious death in the tri-city area had brought him back into her life.

Cathy returned to the last grocery bag, taking out a liter of Coke. “When were you going to tell us?”

“Today,” Sara lied. The look Cathy tossed over her shoulder proved it wasn’t a very good fib. “Eventually,” Sara amended, drying her hands on her pants as she sat back at the table. “Are you making roast for tomorrow?”

“Yes,” Cathy answered, but wouldn’t be sidetracked. “You live less than a mile down the street from us, Sara. Did you think your father wouldn’t see Jeffrey’s car parked in the driveway every morning?”

“Far as I’ve heard,” Bella said, “it’d be there whether he moved in or not.”