Around its neck hung, not a cross, but a small wooden board acrawl with elaborate squiggles. . . .
“Patricia! Goodness!” Judy called to her the instant she stepped into the kitchen. Despite last night’s overindulgence with liquor, and the mental aftermath of her husband’s funeral, Judy looked peppy, vibrant, her grayish-red hair flowing in a mane around her face. “Byron called and he’s worried sick about you! Shame on you for not calling him!”
The exclamation caught Patricia totally off guard. “Byron called the house?”
“Yes,” Judy sternly replied. “A little while ago. He said he’s been leaving messages on your cell phone since yesterday.”
Oh, God . . .
Judy wagged a scolding finger. “Don’t you dare neglect that wonderful husband of yours—”
Ernie stepped up, interrupting. “Uh, Judy, lemme talk to ya a minute. The police are at the Stanherd house right now. There was some bad trouble last night. . . .”
Patricia edged away, leaving Ernie to make the grim report of the Hilds’ murders to her sister. She was back in her room in a few seconds, then retrieved her cell phone and called Byron.
“Oh, God, I was so worried, honey,” he expressed. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, Byron, I’m fine—”
“I left messages and you never called back, so I thought—”
“Everything’s fine, honey,” she said, feeling like a complete lout. What could she say? “Things were just so busy here with the funeral service and the reception, and all the people. There’re so many people here who remember me—I didn’t really expect that.”
“But that was all yesterday, right?”
“Well, yes—”
“So why didn’t you call me this morning?”
Patricia stalled. She looked, horrified, to the clock: it was almost noon. “I’m so sorry. I slept late—I was so exhausted. Then I went for a walk to get the gears turning. But I was going to call you when I got back, and I just got back a minute ago.” She frowned at herself. Now she was simply lying. How could she tell her own husband that she’d completely forgotten about him? That she’d been out “for a walk,” all right, with a man she’d been having sexual fantasies about and . . . and . . . And whom I practically just screwed in the woods? she finished for herself.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I guess I’m overreacting. I know how that place distresses you. Plus, I just . . .” There was a pause on the phone. “I guess I’m just a big, whiny, insecure pud, but I had a horrible dream last night that you were having sex with another man.”
Someone should’ve given Patricia an Oscar for the skill and immediacy with which she next tossed her head back and laughed and said, “Oh, Byron, you’re so ridiculous sometimes. There’s not one solitary man in Agan’s Point who isn’t a redneck hayseed with a busted-up pickup truck. At least have enough respect for me to dream that I’m getting it on with Tom Cruise or Johnny Depp, someone like that.” But even through her recital, she was thinking, Holy, holy, holy shit!
Now—to Patricia’s relief—Byron laughed. “Yeah, I guess it was a pretty dumb dream. I’m just glad everything’s okay.”
Finally she had the opportunity to change the subject but to something not so okay. “Actually, there was a big shocker just this morning. The police have been here—”
“Police?”
“—and evidently two of the Squatters who live on my sister’s land were murdered last night.”
“What!” he exclaimed.
“Yeah, it’s the craziest thing. There have never been murders here ever; then all of a sudden Dwayne gets killed, and now this.”
“I want you out of there right now,” Byron insisted. “Sounds like that backward boondocks place is boiling over. Get in the car right now and come home!”
“Byron, now you are overreacting. It was drug-related, the police said, and it happened miles away out in the woods. Judy’s just finding out about it now, but even though it’s tragic and all that, it’s nothing for us to get all worked up over. A Squatter couple were secretly dealing drugs, and they got murdered by a rival drug gang—that sort of thing. It’s not like there’s a serial killer prowling Agan’s Point.”
“Well, I don’t like it,” Byron affirmed. “The funeral’s over and done with, so there’s no reason for you to stay. You hate the place anyway.”
“Byron, the whole reason I came in the first place was to give my unstable and fairly heavily drinking sister some support in her time of need. I’ll be back next week, just as we planned.”
“Well, all right. But I still don’t like it. And you need to call me—”
“I will, honey,” she promised. “Most of the commotion’s over now, so there won’t be any more distractions. And once I got Judy back on her feet, I’ll be home in a flash.”
“Good.” He paused. “I really miss you and I really love you. You’ve only been gone for a few days and I’m already realizing how important you are to me. I guess I don’t show it much. . . .”
“Byron, of course you do, so stop it.” She truly did love him—more than anything—and she did want to get back to be with him. Her little mishap in the woods with Ernie was just a fluke brought on by the stress of being back; it was simply a loss of control in a moment run amok. I do love Byron, she attested to herself. Ernie was no more than a man in a magazine ad whom she’d happened to notice.
On the other hand—and as loving and genuine as he was—Byron did have his moments of insecurity. He was an overweight middle-aged man, and Patricia was still a well-endowed, beautiful woman. She knew it must be hard for him to deal with sometimes.
“You never have to ‘do’ things to prove your love to me,” she continued. “Just being you is the proof. Please remember that. And I love you too, very much. Remember that too.”
“I will,” he replied, a bit choked up.
“I’ll call tonight, and every night I’m here. And I haven’t forgotten. I even have a cooler.”
“What?”
“Your Agan’s Point crab cakes, silly!”
“Good. And the minute you get back here, I’m going to eat them off your beautiful, naked body. That’s a promise.”
“Byron, nothing turns me on more than culinary sex,” she said, laughing, and then they bade their final “good-byes” and “I love yous” and rang off.
Patricia lay back on the bed and let out a great sigh. The conversation left her relieved and ashamed at the same time, not a good combination. She had lied to him—little white lies, but lies just the same—and she had offered invented excuses, and maybe that was good, because it helped her confront something important about herself.
It’s all me. It’s not Byron. There’s nothing wrong with my marriage, and there’s nothing wrong with him. So . . .
And the coincidence jolted her. He’s been having dreams about me cheating on him, and I’ve been having dreams about me cheating on him. And today, with Ernie, I almost did cheat on him.
It was with a total spontaneity that she roved through her cell phone’s address book and found herself looking at Dr. Sallee’s number, and before she knew what she was doing, the line was ringing.
He probably doesn’t even remember me, she thought. She’d seen him only once, when she and Byron had returned from Agan’s Point after Judy’s wedding. When the receptionist answered, she said, “Hi, my name’s Patricia White. I had a session with Dr. Sallee several years ago. I was wondering if I could arrange a phone consultation. I could give you my credit card number over the phone.”