Storm Track

of Possum Creek. With headlights and wipers both on high, she drove cautiously through the heavy rain. Where the road dipped, deep puddles had formed. They sent up broad wings of water on either side of her Civic as she plowed through.

Once beyond the city limits, there were few cars on the road and she was able to relax a bit and to open her window a tiny crack. Not enough to let the rain in, but enough to keep the windshield from fogging up so badly.

She had dropped the children off at school, taken Brother Wilkins to the eye clinic, picked up the dry cleaning, waited for Brother Wilkins to come out of the clinic, taken him to the Winn-Dixie with her while she shopped for Sister Grace, then helped him into the house with his few bags of groceries. (“Bless you, child,” he’d said. “I’m gonna pray God sends you help in your old age like He sent you to help us.”)

She would deliver Sister Grace’s things and then it would be time for lunch. After lunch—?

Her mind momentarily blanked on what came next on the list.

As Ralph’s wife—no, as the minister’s wife—she had cheerfully put her services at the beck and call of his congregation and she’d always made lists to organize her days. But since finding those condoms in his desk on Sunday, she tried to pack her days even fuller so she wouldn’t have time to brood on how his betrayal undermined the very foundation on which she’d built her life.

Her hands gripped the steering wheel so fiercely that her knuckles gleamed through the tight skin.

How? she asked herself for the thousandth time since she’d found those condoms. How could he have done this dreadful, stupid thing? Did every man, from the President of the United States of America right down to her own husband, put sex before honor? Make themselves slaves of their malehood, shackle their God-given free will to their gonads?

At least Ralph didn’t try to excuse himself by saying, “The woman tempted me so I sinned.” No, he’d rightfully taken the blame on himself. And when he came back home Sunday night and lay down beside her in the darkness, she’d asked two questions. “Does she go to our church?”

“No,” he’d answered.

“Is she white?”

“No, Clara.”

That was all she’d wanted to know, but he had a question of his own. “Do you want a divorce?”

Her heart leaped up and she’d let Satan tempt her for a moment.

To be free of him always wanting what she didn’t have in her to give? To go back to her father’s house? To sleep alone in a narrow bed?

Then she remembered being a daughter in her father’s house, a minister’s daughter, not a minister’s wife. Abiding by rules, not making them. Having to ask, not tell.

As a wife, she had the power to do God’s work.

As a daughter? A divorced woman with a failed marriage?

Her father would do his duty by her, however much he might disapprove of her decision. His congregation would be kind.

But respect? Position?

“No,” she’d said. “No, I don’t want a divorce. All I want is your promise that you’ll never go to her again.”

“As God is my strength,” he told her.

She had turned to him then, ready to give her body as a reward for his vow. He had not pushed her away, merely patted her shoulder as if she were Lashanda or Stanley. In that moment, she realized that he might never again reach for her in the night, and part of her was glad.

Another part felt suddenly bereft.

That sense of loss still clung to her this morning even though she knew that she’d acted as God would have her. She had been grievously wronged, yet she had risen above his sin. She had forgiven him. So why should she feel this inner need for forgiveness?

With relief, she reached the dead end of the unpaved road where Sister Thomas lived and hurried inside with the groceries and supplies.

She fed Sister Thomas’s cat, changed the sheets on the bed and straightened up the kitchen, but when the old woman invited her to stay for lunch, she excused herself and ran through the rain back to her car.

In just the hour that she’d been inside, the rutted clay roadbed had turned into a slippery, treacherous surface that scared her as the tires lost traction and kept skewing toward the deep ditches. She was perspiring freely by the time she’d driven the quarter-mile back to the hardtop.

Pulling out onto the paved road, she recklessly lowered her window and let the cool rain blow in her face. She took deep breaths of the humid air that did nothing to dislodge the weight that seemed to have settled on her heart since Sunday night.

That’s when she noticed the lights of a car behind her. Even though it was noon, the sky was black and the dazzle of lights on her rain-smeared rear window made it impossible for her to distinguish make or driver. Dark and late-model were all she could tell about the car as it rushed up behind her.

She moved over to the right as far as possible. If he was in that big a hurry, maybe he’d go ahead and pass even though there were double yellow lines on this twisty stretch.

A second later, her head jerked and she felt her car being bumped from behind.

What the—?

Another glance in the rearview mirror. He’d done it deliberately! And now he was so close that the headlights were blanked out by the rear of her own car.