“So you didn’t tell them she was a regular over here, or that you fought?”
His nose flared. “Are you crazy or just plain stupid?”
Both, I wanted to say. “You can’t ask me to lie if they question me.” You’d have thought as much as I’d lied over the years to protect him, one more wouldn’t be a big deal, but this was different. Lying would make me an accessory, and if I went to jail, what would happen to you?
The look he gave me was one of betrayal. “I should have known you’d throw me to the wolves first chance you got. Go ahead and put me behind bars so you and your friends can gallivant all over town. Why should you take care of your husband? I’d lay down my life for you, but you can’t even tell a little white lie to save my life. Real nice, Penny.”
“The only person who would lay their life down for me already has,” I whispered. And then, the truth of that really hit me. What God had done for me, that was love. This? I had no idea what this was.
He jerked his head away like he couldn’t stand the sight of me anymore. “Don’t start that again. Not now.”
“He laid his life down for you, too. It’s never too late to—”
“Penny, I’m warning you. One more word and—”
“And what?” I stood. “You’ll kill me, too?” As soon as the words left my mouth, I wanted to take them back. Here I was jumping to the worst possible conclusion. Trent was a lot of things, but a murderer? If the law considered him innocent until proven guilty, surely his own wife could extend him the same courtesy. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”
“Save it.” He looked like I’d slapped him. “It’s clear what you think of me.”
I stepped toward him, but he put his hands up, warning me not to come any closer. A pang of guilt gnawed at me as I saw the pain I’d caused.
Not knowing what else to do, I went back to the kitchen and rinsed off the potatoes I’d peeled earlier. Trent leaned against the doorjamb watching me with a combination of hurt and accusation in his eyes. After what felt like forever, he finally said, “Despite you thinking your husband is a lowlife murderer, I need to know you won’t say that to the cops.”
I scooped the slimy peels from the drain and dropped them into the trash can. “What should I tell them?”
“Just back up my story.”
I picked a knife out of the drawer and pressed it across the length of a potato. “I don’t know.”
“If you think I did this, what are they going to think?”
“I don’t think you did this,” I said, “but you do have a temper.”
“There’s a big difference between hitting someone and murdering them. I didn’t want her dead. What would I have to gain?”
A switch flipped inside me. It’s not a pleasant thought, but maybe it was just the shift in power. “I don’t know. What did you have to gain by all the black eyes you’ve given me over the years?”
“I’ve changed. Dag, Penny, you see that I’ve changed. I’m trying so hard to be the man you deserve. Your husband, Manny’s father. Can’t I have just a little bit of credit for that? When I hit her, I was protecting our family from a freaked-out meth head. Protecting you like a good husband does.”
Good husband. I chewed on that while he pleaded with his eyes.
“What will your son think if you sentence his father to the electric chair?” He walked over to me and put his hands on my waist. “Baby, think about it. You tell them what really happened last night, and it looks like I did her in. Sometimes the truth leads people to a lie. I didn’t kill her. I swear it. We had a fight; that’s it. That man she left with, he’s the one who must have done it. You should have seen him. He looked like someone who would get off murdering women.”
Once again, he had my head swimming and my mind unsure. He had a temper, there was no denying it, but . . . I just didn’t know what to think.
He knelt and gave my belly a tender kiss, then looked up at me with those eyes of his. “Please, Penny. Our son’s going to be here any day. If you won’t do it for me, do it for him.”
Why did I have to be so weak when it came to him? “They wouldn’t really sentence you to death, would they?”
He stood and cupped my face. “Of course they would. They don’t care about nothing except the collar. Innocent people go to jail every day. Innocent people die on death row. Don’t make the father of your son one of those people.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
NEITHER TRENT nor I slept much that night. Every little noise put us on edge, as we waited for the police to come banging down the door and arrest him. The next morning, with bags the size of luggage beneath his eyes, he called in sick. Although I fixed him his favorite breakfast of pancakes with bacon, neither of us could eat more than a bite or two.
We tried to go about our day, me cleaning and cooking, him fixing everything in the house he could think of to keep him busy. We watched the morning news, but there was no mention of Norma. The afternoon version flashed a quick picture of her and a short mention that her body had been found, and where, but that was all. When the evening news came on with another even briefer mention, Trent’s shoulders finally stopped pushing up into his ears, and his dark mood brightened.
As I vacuumed the nursery, he wrapped his arms around my waist, turned the machine off, and whispered that I had worked hard enough. It was time to relax. To my amazement, he led me by the hand to the bathroom, where a tub had already been drawn, complete with a frothy layer of bubbles. The two candles he had placed on the back of the toilet and sink lit the room. The scent of vanilla and cinnamon mingled with the clean smell of liquid soap.
Drooling at the tub, I said, “They told me I’m not supposed to take baths, remember?”
“Yes, I did remember.” He smiled. “The doctor on call said it was okay as long as you weren’t bleeding and your water hadn’t broke.” His eyebrows dipped. “It hasn’t has it?”
I shook my head.
The candle on the sink reflected off the bathroom mirror, making the small room glow a warm red. I couldn’t believe he’d actually done that for me. He kissed my lips, told me to enjoy, and closed the door.
The warmth of the bath felt like heaven, and it was a relief to have the extra thirty pounds of pregnancy temporarily lifted. I scooped up a handful of bubbles and blew them at the faucet. They floated to the shiny metal and slowly glided down, back into the water.
Slouching until suds enveloped my shoulders, I sighed in contentment. You were less active than usual, and though I missed watching you move around, I was thankful for the peace.
I soaked myself until my fingertips were wrinkled and the water lost its heat. It gave me plenty of time to pray for Norma’s family, for the police to get the person who did that to her, and more than anything, that the person wouldn’t turn out to be Trent.
When my skin broke out in gooseflesh, I figured I’d better call it quits. I stood, letting the cool water trickle down my legs as I wrung the bulk of it from my hair. I stepped onto the soft bath mat, wiggling my toes against the loops to dry them, and wrapped myself up in the robe Trent left for me draped over the sink. After I drained the tub and wrapped my hair in a towel, I stepped into the hall to the smell of cooking beef.
When I entered the kitchen, your father was wearing his old grilling apron with an obnoxious “Marinate this!” slogan printed across the front. I hadn’t seen that stupid thing in so long I’d forgotten he even had it. He opened the oven and worked the turkey baster inside a roasting pan.
“What’ve you got there?” I asked.
He looked over his shoulder at me and winked. My word, he was so handsome. “Roast beef.”
I did a mental checklist of the inventory we had in the freezer. We didn’t have roast beef, and he hadn’t left the house to go to the store. We did, however, have a pot roast. “It smells delicious.”
He nodded in agreement. “You married one good cook, One Cent.”
“So, all this time, you’ve been keeping that a sec
ret.”
He shrugged. “Guess so.”
“We still have the mashed potatoes from last night,” I said. “I could make some gravy to go with them.”
He closed the oven and pulled the hand towel off the cabinet door. Holding an end with each hand, he began rolling it like he was getting ready to snap me with it. “You get your rump in on that couch and relax. There’s a cup of that fruity tea you like beside the couch. I laid out a blanket and some extra pillows to prop your feet up on.”
Suspicion replaced delight. “What’s going on?”
“I’m treating my wife to an evening of leisure.”
“An evening of leisure? Why?”
He gave me a look like he couldn’t believe I was questioning his motives. “I look at Cosmo sometimes when I’m in line at the store. I know what you women like.”
I had to laugh at that. “Is that right?”
“One Cent, I’m warning you. Get over to that couch and let me finish dinner or I am going to . . .”
When he paused, we both felt the discomfort of our conversation the night before. Why couldn’t it be like this all the time? Or if not all the time, then at least sometime when he hadn’t just beat the heck out of me or someone else.
He pulled the hand towel back in the firing position.
“I’m going,” I said.
I lay on the couch like he directed and propped up my feet. They were so swollen it looked like I had no ankles. You still weren’t moving much, but every time I got to worrying about it, I would feel you shift, so I figured all was well. I turned on the TV and started thumbing through the channels.
In the kitchen, drawers opened and closed, and pots clanged. I just knew Trent was making a mess in there, but I wasn’t going to ruin the evening by worrying about it. Being taken care of was nice for a change, even if it didn’t sit quite right with what had just happened to Norma. It’s not like I could do anything to help her. I told myself the only thing within my power right then was to be the best wife I could be.
Trent called from the kitchen. “You’ve got a doctor’s appointment tomorrow, don’t you?”
“That’s right,” I called back. One of the talking baby commercials came on that always made me laugh. I set the remote down and picked up my tea. I blew a plume of steam from the top as the TV baby made funny faces over his father’s portfolio. “He wants to see me once a week now that we’re getting close,” I said.
His head popped around the corner. “I think he’s just got a thing for you. There ain’t a man alive who wouldn’t be turned on by you, pregnant or not.”
I felt myself blush. “You’re crazy.”
“Crazy for you.”
He disappeared back into the kitchen, and I returned to flipping through the channels. A red newsbreak banner scrolled across the bottom of the screen and I froze.
The anchorwoman showed a picture of Norma. “Trent!” I yelled.
He ran to the living room as I motioned to the television.
The pretty brunette in a charcoal suit said a suspect had been arrested in the murder of Norma Brentwood. Trent and I exchanged glances.
She stood in the middle of the Gaston farm field where Norma’s body had been found, holding a microphone and brushing strands of windblown hair from her face. “Police today have arrested the husband of the twenty-nine-year-old Gaston woman found dead in this field off of I-81.”
Trent sat on the cocktail table inches from the TV, mesmerized. When they showed a picture of Norma’s husband, it hit me Trent hadn’t done it after all. By the relief I felt then, I guessed I, in my heart of hearts, must have believed he had.
He silenced the TV. “He didn’t do it,” he whispered.
“What do you mean, he didn’t do it?”
“He couldn’t have. She left with that man I told you about. The john.”
I sat up and set my tea down on the table. “Maybe he caught her with him and—”
“Maybe,” he said, sounding unconvinced. “I don’t see him doing this. He’s a wuss. I mean, he came home to find me in the house with his wife, drinking. Instead of busting me in the chops, which is what I would have done, he smiles and puts out his hand for me to shake. That strike you as a killer?”
He’d never admitted to being alone with Norma in her house; in fact, he’d adamantly denied ever setting foot in her home, but I decided to let it go. It’s not like I hadn’t already known it. Now didn’t seem the time to bother with a molehill when we were dealing with a mountain, anyway. “If you think they’ve got an innocent man locked up, you’ve got to say something.”
He huffed and stood. “Yeah, great idea, Penny. That’s real smart. Then they start looking at me, wondering how come I know so much. No way. Maybe he did do it. I only met him that once. He might be a lunatic for all I know.”
They flashed a picture of Norma’s husband at the bottom of the screen. He was a lanky man with a baby face and an apologetic smile. He looked the way Trent described him, easygoing, but I had learned long ago that a kind-looking man could still draw blood. Trent, after all, had an infectious smile, just not while he was beating me. “Did she talk about him like he was abusive?”
He shot me a dirty look. “Abusive don’t equal murderer.”
It was no surprise I’d touched a nerve with that one. “I’m just asking if she mentioned him having a temper.”
He studied his boots. “Yeah, maybe she did mention that, come to think of it.”
Your father could be the best liar in the world, but he could be the worst, too. “Maybe you could send them an anonymous letter about the john and the bar.”
“Let the police do their job. They don’t need help from amateurs.”
Oh sure, I was supposed to let them do their job now that it didn’t involve him.
My wheels started turning, wondering if I could write a letter, maybe pretending to be a patron from the bar that night who didn’t want to get involved. I could make up a fake return address, change my handwriting, sign it anonymously, and maybe just mention she had left with—
Trent gave me a hard look like he could read my mind. Sometimes, I almost believed he could. “And don’t you dare stick your nose in this. If he didn’t do it, they’ll figure it out soon enough. Don’t you get them sniffing on my trail. Leave well enough alone. Hear me?”
I looked at him like I had no clue what he was talking about. “I wasn’t going to—”
“Don’t act like I don’t know you and how that feeble mind of yours works.” He went back to the kitchen, and I lay down again on the couch.
After a few minutes, he came back out. “Hey, you mind finishing up dinner? I want to go rub it in Jimbo’s face that he owes me twenty bucks.”
I pulled the blanket up. “Twenty bucks for what?”
“He bet me the cops would have me behind bars before the night was over. Apparently he don’t have no more faith in me than you do.”
Before I could answer, he was tucking in his shirt and grabbing the car keys.
TWENTY-EIGHT
AS SOON as Trent left for work the next morning, I called our church to ask if I could seek the pastor’s counsel. His secretary put me on hold, forcing me to listen to Muzak so long I was about to start drooling. Eventually, “Do You Know the Way to San Jose” clicked off, and she returned to tell me Nathan would clear his schedule.
Having walked the two miles to the bus stop, I waited beside a woman with a rump the size of two of my pregnant bellies as a plume of exhaust wafted toward us from the back of the city bus. Holding my breath, I held the railing and stepped through the grimy doors behind her. While she took her sweet time inserting two dollars into the slot, I did my best to smooth the wrinkles out of my cash.
Before I could even find an empty seat, the driver hit the gas. Catching myself on the overhead bar, I barely managed to keep my balance. A young woman in a McDonald’s uniform picked up her book bag and slid over so I could sit. I thanked her and took the empty seat. The smell of fr
ench fries reminded me I hadn’t eaten breakfast.
According to my route schedule, we had five stops and two miles before we got to the shopping center that sat behind New Beginnings Church. It took twenty minutes to travel that short distance because apparently people would rather risk their lives and ours than allow a bus to get in front of them. Cars cut us off left and right, slowing us down so much we managed to catch every red light.
Thankfully, fry-girl got off two stops after I’d gotten on, so I had plenty of elbow room, or in my case, belly room. The ride over gave me plenty of time to think about how I would raise my suspicions about Trent to Pastor Harold, or Nathan, as he still insisted on being called.
Over the months, we’d gotten to know the man no better than the first day we set foot in New Beginnings. There had to be a real person, with ups and downs like the rest of us, hiding behind that giant smile of his, but as far as I could tell, he never took off the clergy mask long enough for anyone to see. Then again, what did I know? Maybe the real him was truly always that happy. It didn’t much matter. If he was half the counselor he was preacher, I figured he could at least steer me in the right direction. All I needed was a little guidance.
I could have called Fatimah or Callie Mae, but I already knew what each of them would say—leave Trent. If I told Callie Mae what I feared, I strongly suspected she would feel a Christian obligation to go to the police. She was a trustworthy friend, but her first loyalty was to God.
The bus sputtered to a stop beside a covered bench in front of Food Lion. I thanked the driver, who looked at me from glasses so marred with fingerprints, I don’t know how she saw through them.
It was less than a block to the church from where I’d been dropped off, but it felt like miles with the frigid wind kicking up the dusting of snow that had fallen the day before. My teeth chattered so hard, I hoped they wouldn’t shatter, and my hands were ice cubes inside my jacket pockets.