The nightmare of Moose’s disappearance was a thing we dealt with day by day, minute by minute. Kirk bore the burden of grief heavily. Not only his, but Roxie’s as well. Hers was a constant clawing distress that demanded my husband’s solace.

Before Chuck’s health crisis, I’d barely stayed ahead of the nipping-at-the-heels sensation Roxie generated. Not my heels. Kirk’s. My husband’s. Before being away, I couldn’t put my feelings into words, but since coming back from my brother’s bedside, I had no such problem.

“Callie,” I said, facing her across her receptionist’s desk outside the empty pastor’s office, “am I being foolish? For gosh sakes, it’s just Roxie. Flaky, silly Roxie.” I shrugged dismally. “I get these weird butterflies in my stomach when she gets near Kirk. Like – ” I took a deep huff of air and blew it out, “like fear. Sorta. Jealousy?” I rolled my eyes. “That’s stupid, isn’t it?”

Callie, solemn and closed-faced until now, sat up straighter and cleared her throat. “No. It’s not stupid at all.”

I gazed at her. This time, the thing that leaped through me was no mystery. It was fear. Callie saw it and tried to soften her features. “That’s – ” She stopped, gazed at the window for long moments, during which my heart stopped a dozen times before her brown eyes met mine. “Neecy – Roxie is after your husband.”

A physical force slammed my midriff, taking my breath. “Cal...why do you say that?” The words seemed to come from afar as emotions pummeled and disjointed me.

Callie started to say something then thought better. She continued to watch me as if weighing something precious. Finally, she said, “Neecy, I just think you need to keep your eye on things. Kirk’s up against something potent.”

“Potent?” I whispered and was on my feet, as in run.

“Aww, Neecy,” she leaped to her feet and rushed around the desk to gather me in her arms. “I don’t want to hurt you. Wouldn’t hurt you for anything.” Then she was shaking, holding me to her like I was a life raft or something. I pushed back and gazed into her face. She was crying.

“Don’t, Cal.” Don’t. Please don’t let it be something I don’t want to know.

“I’m sorry....” She slapped her hands to her face as tears streamed down her lovely cheeks, peering at me over them with enormous chocolate watering eyes. Eyes that pitied me. She’s sorry....

For what? I don’t want to know. Please don’t tell me. Why had my body gone numb? Where was the floor? I didn’t know I was weaving till Callie caught hold of me. “Here, sit down, Neecy,” she said gently. “Don’t pay me any attention.” She seated me and rubbed my hands, trying to give them warmth. “You know me, Neecy, ol’ motor mouth Cal. Always thinking the worst....”

The worst. What exactly was the worst?

“What happened while I was gone, Cal?” I spoke through lifeless lips.

The question seemed to stun her. Her head moved from side to side. “Nothing, Neecy. Nothing.” She gripped my shoulders and gave me a gentle shake. “Nothing.”

Footsteps. Kirk appeared in the doorway. “Hey. What’s up?”

Then he saw me. “What’s wrong, honey?” Instantly, he dropped to his knees beside me and took my hands. “You sick?”

His voice was so loving, so concerned, I began to cry, then sob. Quietly, actually, but with such momentum I heaved until nearly blue then came up with a gasp and plunged into the next one. A reflexive thing. One I could not have stopped for the life of me. I was in the grasp of Hell itself. Only Kirk’s touch reached my soul. His soft voice. His concern.

Then, I was standing against him, in his arms, my face burrowed into his neck. “What happened?” I heard him ask Callie.

“She asked about Roxie.” The statement was flat.

“What about Roxie?” Flat, too.

“Just – she felt Roxie has crossed over a line – that she’s chasing you.”

Kirk’s arms squeezed me tighter as he gazed at Callie. So tightly I couldn’t have moved had I tried, which I didn’t. As long as my face connected to the warmth of his neck, felt his heartbeat, his energy, smelled his essence, I felt safe. “What did you say to her?” Kirk’s question was almost casual. But I felt his tension.

The flailing inside me commenced again.

A long silence. “Look – you need to talk to her, Kirk. It’s not my place.”

“Your place to what?” Was his question a challenge?

I heard Callie move quickly to the door. “Sorry, Kirk. This is your thing.” Her footsteps abruptly faded into the sanctuary and out the vestibule. The front door closed firmly.

Thing? I felt the impact of sickening panic building again and stiffened. The arms resisted my pulling away. Held me like a vise. “Stay here, honey,” he whispered. “Let me love you.”

I relaxed against him because I had no other choice. Kirk was my world.

He held me up until I gained enough strength to walk home with him. There, he gently undressed me and slid into bed beside me, lay touching me, his leg linked protectively with mine.

“Kirk?” I turned my face to his in the darkness. “Is there something between you and Roxie?”

I felt his gaze. “If you mean other than a pastor and flock member, no.”

I stared at the ceiling for long moments trying to believe that. Belief did not take. I had to know. Suddenly, I had to know for sure. I sat up in bed, reached to turn on my bedside lamp, then resettled beside him where I could see his face. It looked as miserable as I felt.

“Kirk,” I said slowly, gathering strength, “I want to know the truth. Is what you told me the truth?’

He gazed at me for long moments as I searched his features for signs of honesty – or dishonesty. What I saw was a man who wanted desperately to help his wife. I could not rely on reading his features because, in crisis, Kirk’s shuttered. I had to trust his word.

“Are you telling me the truth.”

Something flickered in his eyes. Only a heartbeat movement. Then it was gone.

“Yes,” he said firmly. “I’m telling you the truth.”

Papa died suddenly the next week of a heart attack. Kirk, the children and I drove to Asheville, to the funeral. Daddy and Anne came, too. MawMaw wept on my shoulder, moaning, “I’m gonna have to depend on you’uns, Neecy. It’s gonna be hard without Papa, honey. Please...try to come as much as you can to see me. I need you now.”

It broke my heart to lose my jolly-clown, laughing Papa, who’d loved me so much. And it broke my heart to see my feisty little MawMaw so broken. She, the family backbone, now needed me. “I won’t let you down, MawMaw,” I whispered and kissed her wet cheek.

Gabe took Papa’s death hard. Because of diabetes, Gabe had not been able to sire children and it was particularly devastating to lose such a significant other as his lively, fun-loving father.

When we went back to MawMaw’s after the Pentecostal service and burial, the small house overflowed with church folk and kin. Daddy spoke to MawMaw, took her hand and tried to comfort her. She accepted his words with only a hint of wariness. It warmed me to see them communicate at last. Daddy then cornered me and took my hand. “You okay, Neecy?” he asked softly.

I nodded firmly. “Yes. Why?”

“You look – worried. Are you losing weight?” His gaze swept my features as they had throughout my life, seeing more, sensing more than I wanted.

“I’ve just been busy. And Papa’s death has hit me hard.” Among other things. Things I still face. Things I’d rather die than Daddy find out. I resolutely pushed away the thought.

He put an arm around my shoulder and pulled me up to his side. “I know, honey. You loved him a lot, didn’t you?”

I nodded, my eyes puddling. Daddy pulled me into his arms.

It came late. Too late for Papa to know. But not too late for me to know.

Daddy cared.

Sunday morning, I walked out to the church early, before folks began to arrive. Kirk had already gone to study and pray. Toby and Heather had eaten breakfast and were dressing for service. I’d not slept well the night before. Nor had I been able to eat much. Papa’s death had taken what little stamina I’d held onto during the Roxie-trauma, leaving me with a nervous stomach and insomnia. A bad case of nerves, actually. And depression. My old nemesis. But I’d get through it, I told myself, hating my weakness.

I mounted the church portico steps, inhaling fresh morning air. I walked over to the end and gazed out at the grave. “Good morning, Krissie,” I whispered, then turned my gaze upward to azure infinitude. “Someday, I’ll come to you, you know.” I closed my eyes for a second, then turned to go in.

That’s when I saw it. Roxie’s car. The red sports car Moose had worked so hard to pay for. Moose, where are you?

I quietly let myself in. My heart pounded like a bass Congo drum tripped into syncopation. My breath caught in my throat as my feet moved swiftly, soundlessly over the carpeted corridor to Kirk’s office. I paused inside Cal’s office, at the closed door and listened. Silence.

Then I heard voices. From the kitchen. I moved in that direction like a tracking jungle cat, my breath coming in spurts, not deep enough to sustain life. I stopped and took several deep breaths, hand clutching chest, until I felt oxygen reach my fingertips again, then commenced my trek.

Laughter. I stopped dead. Roxie’s trickling laughter. “Kirk, you’re too much.”

It wasn’t what she said. It was the way she said his name. As though she knew Kirk.

I took two, three more silent steps. Until I could peer around a corner into the dining area. Kirk lounged on the corner of a table, his profile to me. Roxie stood before him, almost between his legs, yet not quite touching him in that instant. Both were grinning from ear to ear, as if at some private joke. Their gazes remained locked, amused. Roxie’s next words were so low I couldn’t hear. Kirk nodded.

I could stand it no longer. “Kirk?” I barged into the room.

His head turned indolently. Not an eyelash moved to reveal any discomfort. I halted, as though frozen by some invisible force.

“Yes?” His reply was formal. Like I was intruding.

Any peace I’d gained since his avowal the previous week took flight. I stopped and looked coolly at Roxie, who merely gave me a dismissal glance and Kirk a smile as she breezed past me in a new designer outfit of ultra feminine ruffles and flounces that set off every sensuous line of her statuesque shape. In the wake of her departure, I inhaled Channel No. 5. Expensive. Moose’s money bought it.

Kirk remained seated on the table, watching me with such ease I wanted to scream at him. Kirk knew. He knew how I felt and still allowed her access to him. I didn’t say a word. I simply let him see my displeasure, then spun and left. I went home, pulled the cover up to my chin and called out to Heather as she started out the door, “I’m sick. Tell Charlie to lead the choir. Put Dawnie in the toddler nursery with Donna.”

I knew it would cripple the service, but for once, I didn’t have the strength to care. I was too sick to cry. I closed my eyes and sank into momentary numbness.

In that moment, I hated Kirk Prescott for his denial ability. For his duplicity. For his callousness. And I hated myself for loving him.

The tears puddled.

The following days blur in recall. Mask in place, Kirk stepped onto another stage. Everything in the universe adapted to his chameleon shift so smoothly that it missed not a beat.

Everything except me. I’d shifted from normal the morning when I saw, felt and heard the simmering intimacy between my husband and this woman who called Kirk ‘my pastor’ with emphasis on ‘my’...who drove Moose away as surely as I breathe, by taking, taking, taking – sucking the life from him before he disappeared. Just as she now sucked the life from Kirk.

Oh, Kirk didn’t acknowledge Roxie’s hold over him. In those days, Kirk didn’t acknowledge anything. The two of us functioned on different planets, spoke different languages. From there, equalization plunged even lower. Kirk moved as though nothing had altered. I moved as though everything had changed. Like a zombie, yet this time, the zombie had feelings that bled and screamed and pleaded eloquently for help. A plea unheeded. Kirk’s denial shot to new zeniths. We spoke to each other, but there was no communication.

Kirk’s premise was that Roxie was his best friend’s deserted wife. Plus – most significantly – he was her pastor and in her time of grief and rebuilding her life, she needed him.

“How can I not be here for her, Neecy?” had been his reply to my reaction in the church fellowship hall. “We were only talking, for goodness sake.”

“What about?” I have a right to know why she was in your face, oozing, rubbing her sexuality all over you, flaunting and seducing you with her French fragrance, laughing over little things known only to the two of you. Why she’d never let me get to know her on any level, allowing neither Cal nor me to comfort her.

In that last moment of spontaneity, it was, to me, a simple matter of Roxie having jumped a boundary that canceled access to my husband. Not her pastor. My husband. I was still naive enough to believe I could call her on it and that Kirk would concede to what I felt.

Kirk stared at me as though I’d grown trees on my head, sprouted spiked hooves on my ears. I’d never before questioned Kirk’s ethics or faithfulness. Nor had I challenged his pastoral sovereignty or confidentiality.

Kirk’s expression puzzled me, made me uncomfortable, insecure. He shook his head and said softly, “Neecy – jealousy is a terrible, terrible thing.” He walked away from me that morning without another word. Just jealousy is a terrible, terrible thing.

Was that all it was? Me? Jealousy?

My head spun from self-talk. Despite my wish to believe Kirk, I could not turn off my rationale. My rationale did not jive with Kirk’s contention – that nothing existed between himself and Roxie. Kirk was ultra gentle with me on other counts in life. Except with the issue of Roxie. I was beginning to think I did have mental problems.

To me, she was the issue.

Every time I turned around, she was at the church. She’d taken to dropping by the office at all hours of the day. Her reasons were incessant and, to my humiliation and horror, valid. Kirk’s expertise with finances and legalese were now my curse. He was simply too brilliant and too male to not show off his genius to the helpless, flaky, forsaken Roxie.

That her beauty was perhaps another snag did not elude me for a heartbeat.

“She’s driving me up the wall,” Callie sniped one day when I walked out to the office to spend time with her. I now dreaded time alone. “Would you believe,” she sat back in her chair and clicked her ballpoint pen rapid fire, “she’s jealous of me? Glares at me when she goes into Kirk’s office, then when she comes out, gives me this smug little ‘nya nya’ look.”

“Why is she jealous of you?” I asked, feeling as sick as I’d ever felt in my life. Like an invisible tiny insect cowered in a torture chamber crammed with Goliath’s, all stomping at me, determined to squash me underfoot. When did Roxie ever arrive at ‘jealous?’ What gave her the right?

“Because I try to keep her away from Kirk.” Callie’s ebony gaze glittered with fury.

“But he won’t cooperate with you.” My voice was dull and flat. Resigned.

Callie’s expression softened. “I think Kirk is thinking like a pastor. Roxie’s simply being what she is. What I’ve always known her to be.”

“Same difference.” I turned in my chair and gazed out the window at irate black skies.

“Neecy, we’ve got to trust in God to take care of the outcome.”

“Um hmm.” I gazed unseeing as the sky erupted and began to weep, splattering and rivuleting the window. Trust in God.... So easy to say. Almost glib. I knew she was right. But at the moment, I’d lost contact with myself. Who would reach out to God?

Am I losing my mind? I took a deep, ragged breath. So tired. No sleep. Can’t eat....

“You okay, Neecy?” Cal’s voice brought me back. She watched me closely. “Look, honey. You need to get that stupid Roxie off your mind. Kirk’s too smart to get mixed up with a bimbo like her. Or anybody for that matter. That man loves you.”

Her belief in Kirk pierced my fog, made hope flutter.

She smiled at me. I smiled back.

“Yeah,” I said, feeling my heart lift for the first time in days.

That night, I initiated sex. Something I rarely did. Oh, I’d always been responsive to my husband’s touch. Our passion had not diminished. But for the first time since the Roxie invasion, I felt a surge of confidence that I was first in Kirk’s life.

“Ahh, darling,” Kirk kissed me breathless, then rolled over onto his back, cupped hands under his head and grew still. That was it. As in do me. I stared at him, feeling my bubble of buoyancy splaaatt and flatten into a cold solid sheet of nothing. I had expected – something from Kirk. Needed him to give, to resurrect and validate me. Tonight of all nights I needed that. A sudden urge to flee seized me. Leaden, numb, I slid from bed and reached for my robe.

“Where are you going?” Kirk asked quietly.

“Kirk – I,” my fingers shook violently as I buttoned my housecoat and slid my feet into slippers. “I need to take a walk. I’m keyed up...I’ve not had much rest lately and need to clear my head.”

“Why?”

I wasn’t up to an all out argument or recriminations so I headed for the door. “I just told you.”

“You don’t know what you’re walking out on.” His words, so quiet, so enigmatic, so challenging, stopped me dead and stirred my anger.

I whirled around and squinted through the darkness to where he lay, relaxed, flat of his back, waiting to be serviced. Did he actually say that or was my mind playing tricks? I narrowed my gaze at his indolent pose. “What do you mean, Kirk? What am I walking out on?”

His still silence sizzled an unspoken message of sexual domination.

Why, you would subjugate me further.

Not in this lifetime, Buster. I spun and dashed from the room, shaking with indignation and hurt. How could he not know how I would take that? I strode through the front door and across the lawn. A night light illumined church and parsonage property so I walked briskly within and over its silvery confines, desperate to purge myself of churning, swirling forces that spawned anxiety, shredded nerves, cancelled sleep, destroyed appetite, mocked tears, and pummeled my body into a heap of garbage. That told me I was unloved and unlovable.

I dropped to my knees beneath a tree and dug my fingers into the soft sand. “Oh, God,” I moaned. “Please help me.” My hands plowed deeper into the bog as tears dripped and added to its moistness. “I-am-so-alone,” I whispered through my teeth, not wanting to chance being overheard. By whom? Who would overhear? taunted the oozy, black thing that swirled and sucked away at my substance. Who cares enough?

I knew. Something deep, deep inside me knew. Kirk would not come and find me.

I sat on the ground for a long, long time, staring dully at the starry sky. How far I’d come from that girl who’d believed in true love. Life seemed crushed from me. My limbs resisted movement, but I forced them to carry me into the house and into the kids’ bathroom, where I ran a tub of water then crawled in, hoping to cleanse away sand and tension.

“Mom?” Heather came in to use the bathroom, squinting sleepy-eyed at me. She’d been asleep for hours. “You okay?”

“Um hmm.” I smiled but failed to fool her.

“I know about Roxie chasing after Dad,” Heather said matter-of-factly.

I gazed at her, dry-mouthed and blurry visioned. “Why – how?”

Heather’s nose rose a notch and she cast me a sidelong look of disgust. “Anybody would have to be blind not to see it. Besides, I’ve been out to the office when Callie tried to keep her away from Dad. No way, Jose. She’s nuts.”

My heart lurched. Please, God, protect Heather. But I did so need somebody.... “I thought I was imagining things,” I said, hardly recognizing my scratchy, hoarse voice.

My daughter looked at me with wise eyes. “Mom, I’m beginning to think you’re the only one around here with any sense a’tall.” With that she swooped to plant a solid kiss on my cheek. “’Night, Mama. I love you.”

“Love you, too,” I whispered as the tears came, too late, thank goodness, for her to witness. I bit my lip until I tasted blood but could not stem the tears until they got good and ready to cease.

Afterward, I crawled into Krissie’s bed.

Alone...alone...alone. Only thing worse was being with Kirk, yet not being with Kirk.

Where are you, God? I’m frightened. I tried to quote Bible verses but couldn’t finish a single one before losing grasp of the words. The slimy, reptilian presence of demonic seducing spirits, different than any I’d before encountered, taunted and slithered and hissed at me and I realized they’d been doing this for days, hours I’d been fighting and driving them back with strength from the Almighty.

Tonight, I could not escape. Through the long black hours, I grew to recognize the smell, touch and sound of them.

Daylight scattered the darkness. Only then did I feel myself loosen to swirl, then plunge into instant, exhausted oblivion.

I awoke with a start, heart palpitating. Sunlight washed the empty house. Disoriented, I gazed blearily about the room, then identified it as Krissie’s. Why am I here? Then I remembered and the blackness rushed at me, its viciousness incited by timeout. I mentally fought to buttress myself, to stave off the worst.

I glimpsed the blurred bedside clock. Eight-twenty-three. I’d slept two and a half hours, not nearly enough for a seven to eight-hour gal, but it had to do because once awake, I braced myself against an avalanche of adrenaline.

I rolled into sitting position. My head dangled forward and spun for long moments as I sat there, waiting for blood to reach and quicken my extremities. When moments passed and still they remained numb, fear lanced me. My brain toiled while my body vacationed somewhere.

Help! I ignored the inner shriek as I flexed and unflexed my fingers, flailed and rubbed them. I stomped my feet on the floor. Dead. My arms felt nothing when I frisked them. I pushed myself up onto wobbly limbs and discovered I could walk, though unsteadily. I moved clumsily about, holding onto furniture, knowing that doing so generated circulation.

Within moments, sensation began to seep back into me. But rather than soothing awareness, my skin screamed as though on fire. My scalp and face burned from raw nerves. My ears buzzed and hurt and my dry tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth.

Terror gushed upward from my bowels and filled me to bursting. I threw open my mouth, then heard them: screams. They went on and on and on. Forever. I felt pain in my throat and wondered who howled in such shrill agony. Poor thing. I stumbled against Krissie’s oak dresser that still held her toiletries and knick-knacks and caught myself before falling. The cries recommenced, stronger than ever, with such travail I thought my heart would break. I white-knuckled the dresser’s edge, my eyes squeezed shut as the ear-splitting shrieks climbed to crescendo.

That’s it. I’ve got to help that person. I lifted my head and found myself gazing into the mirrored sufferer’s face.

The screams abruptly ceased. I stared horrified at a person I no longer knew. Enormous, terrified eyes burned from dark pits gouged into a pitifully bony, tear-streaked face whose mouth froze into a wide death rictus. My gaze slid down to fingers so frail as to be nearly transparent. Wrinkled clothes hung from a stick-drawn skeleton.

When? How did I ever come to this?

Shame washed over me. I closed my mouth, snatched a tissue and blew my nose, then wiped my wet face dry. Survival took over. Instinct. My last dredge of self-respect snapped to attention and demanded immediate action.

Stripping last night’s clothes from my ridiculously skinny frame, I took stock of what was left of me to salvage. My skin still burned and my hands tremored but I could endure that. Had, in fact, before marriage, when Kirk had wanted his ‘time out with buddies.’ That endurance recall calmed me some. I analyzed where I’d come from all those years ago. By George and by cracky, I’d battled the demons then and won. Insecurities, insomnia, involuntary anorexia, the whole kit and kaboodle..

No one knew of my battles. Not even Daddy suspected their brutality. Neither would they now. I refused to amplify my unloveableness with revealed frailties. By concealing the truth, I may, just may, avoid driving everyone from me.

I turned from my ugly reflection and padded to the bathroom. Under the shower, for the first time in days, I succeeded in talking with my maker.

Talking, not listening. “Lord, please help me to be stronger. Please – do something to rid me of Roxie. I don’t believe Kirk’s guilty of – unfaithfulness. But I don’t trust her for a minute. So, anything you can do to help me, I’d sure appreciate it. Thanks, Lord.”

I rushed to dress and join Callie at the church office, to escape aloneness. I didn’t linger to listen to that inner guiding voice.

A big mistake, I would learn much later.

Kirk didn’t know about the Pastor Appreciation Day scheduled at Solomon Methodist Church two weeks later. It was a secret thing to honor him. Behind-the-scene plans ran smoothly, due to Callie’s administrative skills.

“Just call me bulldozer,” she snorted when I complimented her, then grabbed me for a huge hug. Roxie had gone low profile, barely showing her face anywhere. Secretly, I was jubilant. So was Callie. Kirk seemed – well, almost normal again. We’d had a heart-to-heart about that night and his cryptic remark.

“You can’t pay any attention to me, Neecy, what with Moose’s disappearance and all.” He shrugged his wide shoulders, looking desolate. “It’s still hard to believe he split. Anyway, I don’t even remember what I was teasing you about that night. Then, when you said you needed to clear your head, I figured you needed time alone for whatever.” He’d taken me in his arms and declared huskily, “Just know this, Neecy. I love you with all my heart.”

Undercover, I fought my way from trauma’s wasteland. Nights still stretched long and food churned in my stomach, but at least, I functioned without it being detected. My rationale continued to argue with the romantic me. Told me I was crazy for believing every word Kirk spoke.

Fact was, I wanted to believe him, chose to trust him.

My self-disgust went on hold. I sort of drifted along on autopilot, not dealing with it. At that moment, survival came first. Regaining strength. Health and self-esteem would come later. First things first.

Dad, Anne and family came down for the special service, arriving on Saturday. Of course, with the event being top secret, they didn’t tell Kirk the reason. “We need a weekend off,” was Dad’s sole comment.

On the Sabbath, I dressed Dawn and sent her on ahead with Lynette and Heather to church, then rushed to my room to get ready. “Come with me, Anne,” I gestured, “tell me how Chuck’s doing.”

Anne, already decked out in an alabaster suit, lounged on my bed as I pulled a navy-blue skirt and long-sleeved white blouse from the closet and riffled through my dresser drawer for panty hose without holes.

“He’s holding his own, Neecy. You know Chuck – never complains. Doesn’t want pity. But – ” Anne’s eyes moistened, “I can’t help it. He breaks my heart sitting around that nursing home with folks old enough to be his grandparents, nobody to talk with – on his level that is. I can see his loneliness when I arrive, before he spots me.”

I pulled off my robe and began to thread my leg into the hose. “I wish – ”

“Neecy!”

I swiveled to look at her, startled. “What?”

Her eyes were stricken, like huge donuts. “Neecy – what’s happened to you? You’re no bigger round than a toothpick!”

I could have kicked myself for exposing my wasted self to her. Usually, my loose fashions camouflaged it. “It’s nothing, Anne. I’ve just been busy lately and forget to eat, is all.”

She gazed unbelieving at me. “You look sick.”

“I’m fine. You worry too much, Anne.” I laughed nervously, covered myself and steered the subject back to Chuck. “Has Teresa been nicer to you and Daddy lately?”

Her brow still furrowed with worry, Anne sat back against the headboard. “Not really. Chuck finally told me what I’d suspected all along. She told him she doesn’t like his family. Resents us.”

I spun to face her, incensed. “You know why? Because we love him. We make it hard for her to convince him he should just go ahead and die.”

Anne nodded sadly. “I’m afraid she doesn’t want him to linger.”

“She only went back to him to get what little money he had left in the bank.”

“Well,” Anne cut me a wise look, “that’s all gone now. Poor boy doesn’t have a cent to call his own.”

“So she’s shoving him at the mortician.” I beat my hair with the hair dryer and finger-fluffed it. “Has she allowed him to go home with you for dinner?”

“Not yet. He still wants to. In the worst way. It’s hard, seeing him humbled like that.”

“I know.” I choked on emotion, my mind’s eye seeing a magnificent blond Adonis in his youth who had the world on a string and girls at his feet. Whose zest for life exceeded all those in my experience, save Callie’s and Kirk’s.

Anne and I walked to church across dew-kissed grass, inhaling spring coastal air sweetened by honeysuckle and early azaleas. Inside, I escorted Anne to where Daddy was already seated, reading his Bible to pass time. Naturally antsy, he’d left earlier with the kids. Only two or three early arrivals milled about in the vestibule, including the Prescott and Whitman offspring, who kidded around in subdued tones.

I headed for the office complex in the rear of the church, where my choir robe hung in Kirk’s closet, not its usual place, but he’d picked it up at the cleaners for me only yesterday. Callie almost slammed into me. “Come on, Neecy, don’t go back there.” She took my arm and propelled me back from whence I came.

“But , Cal,” I tried to shrug loose as she kept moving, “my choir robe is in Kirk’s office.”

She stopped abruptly. I could hear her mind churning. Then she raised her hands half-mast. “Okay. I’m going back for it. You stay here. Promise?”

“What’s going on, Cal?”

“Stay here!” She glared at me for a long moment, her intent to intimidate me.

Her backend vanished promptly. Then my feet began moving, trailing her. Somehow, I knew.

My insides, nearly relaxed from earlier ordeals, instantly knotted.

Roxie was on the premises. I felt it. The black slime was alive and well.

At the office door, I collided with Callie, whose face turned thunderous. “I told you to not come – ”

Roxie appeared like sleight of hand, her eyes in feline slits. Kirk on her heels, growled, “Don’t do it, Roxie!”

She simply smiled and stepped toe-to-toe with me, slanting me a smug look. “He doesn’t want you to know, Neecy. But I think you ought to – ”

“Stop it!” Kirk grabbed her shoulders and shook her like a rag doll. Callie pushed me farther inside and slammed the office door to keep the noise down.

“Keep your filthy mouth shut, Roxie,” my husband hissed so quietly I flinched. I knew that sign meant he was at the breaking point.

Roxie shot him a look of pure sensual malevolence. “Y’know what, Kirk? You don’t have a blasted thing to do with what I say or not say.” She turned to face me again and opened her mouth to speak.

“Say one word,” Callie pushed me aside and mingled breath with Roxie, “and I’ll make you wish you were dead.”

Roxie hesitated, then opened her mouth again, “Neecy – ”

Callie grabbed Roxie by the hair and slung her against the wall so forcefully, Cal stumbled backward. I reached for her just as Kirk caught her, a breath away from hitting the floor. Roxie slid to the floor soundlessly, pale and disoriented.

“Would somebody please tell me what’s going on?” I peered fearfully at them, knowing I didn’t want to hear but it was like a keg of worms turned loose. There was, for me, no turning back. “Tell me.”

Kirk’s eyes when they met mine blazed. “She’s trying to destroy everything with lies.”

“Lies?” Roxie, sprawled in the floor, gave a small strangled sound of disgust and climbed to her stiletto-heeled feet.

“Shut up!” Callie stepped forth warningly.

“Lies.” Kirk turned to Roxie with a look on his face I knew to be throwing down the gauntlet. “Get out of my church and don’t show your face here again.”

Roxie’s face turned ugly. “For now.”

She swept past Callie, searing her with a look of disdain. “Before I’m through, you’ll both wish you were dead.” Then she turned and looked at me with bald contempt. “Let’s see – what was your name? Oh yeah – poor, poor blind little Neecy. You – ”

“Lay off her!” Callie shoved violently and Roxie’s padded shoulder struck the door with a loud thud.

“Get your sorry behind out of here! Now.”

I reeled from Roxie’s assessment of me, one I myself entertained all too often. Was it accurate?

Roxie got her footing, brushed her short skirt over her hips in a defiant caress and shook the titian mane from her shoulders.

She looked straight at Kirk, whose poker face was unreadable. It annoyed me. It sent fissures of fear through me. “For now,” she purred and oozed through the door with much elaborated hip movement.

“Thank God.” Callie closed her eyes as the footsteps faded. Then her eyes popped open. “I’d better see her out.” She raced to make sure Roxie didn’t detour.

Kirk peered at me. “You okay, Neecy?” The query was so tender and caring it caught me off guard, made me dizzy.

I nodded. “You?”

“Yeah. I am now.” He shook his shoulders and rolled his head as if to dispel the catastrophe. “I should have done that a long time ago. I just didn’t know how – devious she was. Had no idea.”

I told you so. Yet I could not, would not speak the words because I could not get away from my ethics – would never be able to abandon them. In essence, I treat others as I want to be treated.

Then, his arms held me so desperately, everything fled except the two of us. And I realized that whatever had happened, Kirk was as much victim as I. He helped me into my choir robe and hand-in-hand, we walked to face whatever the day might hold.

My healing was not instantaneous but calm was. In the wake of infernal anarchy, I wallowed in heavenly tranquility. Pastoral Appreciation Day proceeded without a whiff of what had transpired in Kirk’s office that morning.

“What brought it all on?” I asked Callie later that week. For the first couple of days following the explosion, I’d simply floated upon euphoric deliverance, paddling round and round in it like an aimless intoxicated duck. “Why did Roxie go over the edge?”

Callie sat on my sofa after dinner one evening, sipping coffee. Kirk, Heather and Toby were doing their monthly Convalescent Home odyssey, involving that evening the entire Solomon Youth ministry. Alone, Cal and I packed the dishwasher, wiped the counters and curled up across from each other in the cool earth-tone ambience of the den.

Callie nursed her cup in both hands, legs tucked beneath her at an alluring angle that still showed ample calf and ankle, and drew from her brew leisurely. Giving her time to think. These days, the old impulsive, shoot-from-the-hip Cal did not exist.

“She wanted my job.” Callie stated matter-of-factly. She placed her cup on the end table and then steepled her fingers to her full lips.

“Your job?”

“Yeah. See – I might be leaving soon.”

Whammo! “Cal. No.”

“Fraid so, Neecy. Mama’s got cancer.”

“Dear Lord – no. How long have you known?”

“For a few weeks now.”

Hurt washed over me. A flashback to the past when Callie failed to share important things with me. I tried to brush it away. Had to.

As though reading my thoughts, she said, “I didn’t say anything because – Neecy, you’ve been through a lot lately. I didn’t want to add to it with my problems.”

“Am I that transparent?” I choked on the words, hating my vulnerability.

Callie’s smile flashed, showing her even white teeth. “I’ve known you a long time. Remember?”

That, too, made me uncomfortable, but I hid it by smiling. “Yep. Fraid so. I just hate it that you don’t let me help you carry burdens, is all.” Then suddenly, I despised myself for whining.

“Sorry,” Callie threw up her hands, making me feel guilty. “Thought I was doing the right thing.”

“You were saying Roxie wanted your job.” I truly thought I was ready to talk about it.

Callie’s face clouded. “Did she ever.” She wiggled herself into tailor position, ankles crossed before her, more animated. “She got to sneaking in, to eavesdrop on me and Kirk. I told you she was jealous, accused us of having this thing going.” She rolled her eyes. “Wishful thinking on her part – thinking if Kirk would hit on me, she had a chance, you know?”

I nodded, feeling my insides begin to churn. Too late, I realized I wasn’t as ready to hear Kirk discussed in this context as I’d thought.

“Well,” Callie continued, “one day, she overheard me mention I might be leaving soon to take care of Mama and she appeared like a Genie in a bottle – ta da! – cutting her eyes at Kirk like a western Geisha, smearing it on like mayonnaise. ‘Oh, Kirk, I’ve been praying for a job like this. Ever since Moose left, I’ve been crying myself to sleep at night tadatadatada.’ The whole nine yards, baby.” Callie said all this through clenched teeth, the chocolate eyes all pupils, now moistened with rage. “I told her ‘no way.’ That first on the waiting list is Tillie Dawson, who’d love to be back.”

Tillie. How little I’d understood when another woman clouded her marriage. I thought I had sympathized, but I’d not had a clue.

Callie’s leaving. Despair flushed through me. “When’re you going?

“Not until I have to. Soon, however. Mama’s going down fast.”

Butterflies flapped away inside me. I had to ask. “How did Kirk handle Roxie’s demands for your position?”

Callie’s brow knitted and she crossed her arms, thinking. “He didn’t, really. Left it to me. Like everything else concerning her. It’s like – he had to appease her or something. Got to me at times. But....” Her voice trailed off and she glanced at me, as though sensing she’d said too much.

“You’ve been protecting me, haven’t you?” I asked in a flat voice.

Something flashed in her face then vanished. “Both you and Kirk.” She slid her feet into slippers and stood. “Gotta run. My bedtime.”

“Wait,” I stood. “Why did you feel you had to protect Kirk?” Dread pounded my heart like tom-toms.

Callie whirled to face me, eyes ablaze. “Because, I hated to see that floozy destroy what you and Kirk have worked so faithfully to build. Roxie would blow this ministry to confetti without as much as a backward glance.” Her features slid into sadness. “You were always the good girl. I was the bad. I’ve done lots of things wrong in my lifetime.” Moisture gathered in her onyx eyes. “I want to do this right. If you two hadn’t taken me in and helped me onto the right road, I don’t know where I’d have ended up.”

She hugged me fiercely. “Thanks, Neecy. I couldn’t let Roxie get away with what she was doing. I just couldn’t.”

My voice caught on a sob. “T-thank you, Cal. I hate to see you go, but I understand.”

She gazed at me, humor breaking over her face. “I’m just going home to bed.”

I playfully smacked her shoulder. “You know what I mean.”

“Yeah. I reckon I do. It’ll all work out okay. You’ll see.”

I waved from the door as her car spun away and then dressed for bed, listening for Kirk and the kids to come in. Propped in bed, I read my Bible verses and thought on Callie’s divulgences. With Roxie’s threatening presence gone, I realized I could think more clearly, could assimilate truth from fiction – Or could I? I had not heard Roxie’s lies, thanks to Kirk and Callie’s barricade that Sunday to hush her up. How could I judge something I did not know?

Something on the deepest gut-level told me I did not want to know.

Truth was, I wanted my life with Kirk back. The one before Roxie.

I could no longer tune out the litany going round and round in my head since. Was too tired to fight it.