Rachel Lee - July Thunder

Sometimes, he said silently to God, you have a nasty sense of humor.

And for a few moments, he almost thought the hills laughed back at him.

“Mary?”

Mary McKinney held the phone closer to her ear. “Yes?”

“Fred Taylor, Taylor’s Auto Body.”

“Oh, hi, Fred. What’s the bad news?” But she didn’t care. At least this bad news would distract her from her other unhappy thoughts. Funny how the past could sometimes be more vivid than the present. She’d spent all day since the accident trying to put it back where it belonged.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to call your insurance?” Fred said hesitantly.

“That bad?”

“The bumper has to be replaced, and the tailgate is really bent. I don’t think we can straighten it, so we’ll probably have to get a whole new door assembly. Taillight assemblies, paint…well, you’re not gonna like it. But the car’s almost new. You ought to have it fixed the way it was or it’s worthless. The bank wouldn’t like that.”

“How much?” she asked.

He quoted a price that caused her to straighten abruptly.

“That much?” she said, appalled. No way was Jim going to be able to pay for that, not after working at the mine for little more than a month. But neither could she afford it herself. A schoolteacher’s salary didn’t stretch that far.

“Let me call your insurance,” Fred said. “They’ll work it out with the other insurer and it won’t cost you a dime.”

She was tempted, sorely tempted. But it might cost Jim Wysocki his insurance, and without insurance, he wouldn’t be able to drive, even to get to work. Biting her lip, she fought down a sense of panic. What was she going to do without a car? “Is it drivable?”

“Not now.”

“How long would it take to get it drivable?”

“At a minimum, five days. I have to order parts, and there’s a lot of work to do just to get that far, never mind the paint.”

Well, of course, she thought miserably. It was only what she deserved. “Let me get back to you, Fred, okay?”

After she hung up the phone, she sat staring out the window. Across the street, someone was moving into the small house, a man with incredible white hair. A couple of people were helping him. It crossed her mind that she ought to wander over and offer to help, too, but she felt too stunned. Too…depressed.

Jim wouldn’t be able to pay for the repairs. She wouldn’t have a car to drive, which meant she wouldn’t be able to go visit her aunt this weekend. That troubled her, because Nessa was seriously ill, undergoing chemotherapy for cancer. But it was no more than she deserved, she reminded herself. No reason her life should be easy when she had destroyed someone else’s.

With a heavy sigh and a heavier heart, she picked up the phone and called Jim Wysocki. He was just getting ready to go on his shift at the mine.

“Oh, jeez, Ms. McKinney,” he said when she told him the bad news. “Oh, jeez. I can’t pay for the whole thing at once. Half. I could do half. And maybe pay the rest in installments over the next couple of months?”

Paying half would wipe out her savings. But apparently it would wipe out Jim’s, too. Her shoulders sagged. She could have insisted on going to the insurance company, but she couldn’t bring herself to do that. She would manage somehow. She had to.

“All right,” she said. “Take the money over to Taylor’s. You can pay me the rest when you’re able. And tell Fred Taylor to give me a call after you stop in, will you?”

“Sure, Ms. McKinney. Thank you! I mean…”

But she didn’t want to hear his gratitude. As quickly and gently as she could, she ended the conversation. He was a good kid. But like most eighteen-year-olds, he still had some growing up to do.

And she had to stop spending so much of her own money on classroom materials. Like all too many teachers, she was always finding things that she thought would stimulate interest in her students, things the school system didn’t provide. And of course there were always the students from poorer families who needed the most basic supplies, from pens to notebooks. She never regretted those purchases, but she did need to be more careful about them, if her savings could be wiped out by a single car accident.

Forcing herself to shake off the mood that had been plaguing her since the accident, she went to freshen up a little. Sam would arrive to get her soon. And there was the neighbor across the street. She needed to at least welcome him.

The past needed to return to the dungeon where it belonged.

Which of course it didn’t want to. But after all these years, Mary had some experience of twisting her mind away from it by playing tricks with herself. She rewrote her shopping list, telling herself she needed to forgo a few extravagances she had planned. Crossing these things off the list simply wouldn’t do.

And finally she went across the street to welcome her new neighbor, sure that a few minutes of conversation until Sam arrived would be just the distraction she needed.

He was a beautiful man, she thought as she approached him. Tall, lean, with the thickest, whitest hair she had ever seen, and piercing eyes as blue as ice. His very presence seemed to command, and something about him struck her as familiar.

“Hi,” she said brightly. “I’m Mary McKinney, your neighbor across the street.”

He smiled. “Reverend Elijah Canfield,” he said in a deep voice that hinted at thunder. “I’m the new pastor at The Little Church in the Woods.”

“Oh, it’s a lovely little church,” Mary said warmly.

“You’ll join us sometime for worship?”

“I’ll think about it,” Mary replied, though she had no intention of that. She belonged to another church with which she was quite content, thank you very much. “Canfield? I know a deputy named Sam Canfield.” It was a casual remark, something to mention to a stranger when she didn’t know what else to say. She didn’t expect the answer she got.

“I know him,” said Reverend Canfield.

“Are you related?” The thought surprised her. While she didn’t know Sam all that well, she suddenly realized that she’d been under the impression he didn’t have any family at all.

“I know him,” Elijah repeated.

“Oh.” Mary felt uncomfortable suddenly, as if she’d trod somewhere she shouldn’t have. A strange feeling for a first, casual encounter with a stranger. “Well, I hope you enjoy your time in Whisper Creek, Reverend. It’s a lovely, friendly little town. And if there’s anything you need, don’t hesitate to let me know. I’m always good for a cup of sugar.”

He laughed, and the uneasiness was dispelled as if the sun had come out from behind a cloud.

“I’ll remember that, Mary McKinney. Is that missus?”

“Ms.”

“Miss McKinney,” he said with a little bow.

Mary, who was quite opposed to “miss” because she didn’t feel her marital status was anybody’s business but her own, realized she had just run into an old-time preacher who thought women had their proper place. However, out of common courtesy she said nothing. Some old dogs couldn’t learn new tricks, anyway.

“So, what do you do, Miss McKinney?”

Was she imagining it, or did he emphasize the “miss”? Down, girl, she told herself. It was not time to get on her feminist soapbox. “I’m a teacher at the high school,” she answered. “Creative writing and literature.”

At that moment two of the helpers came out of the house, and with a suddenly sinking heart, Mary recognized them. They were parents who had last year attempted to get some of the books on her reading list banned.

“Literature,” Elijah Canfield said. “That wouldn’t be The Catcher in the Rye and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, would it?”