couldn’t make it to high ground, Deborah.”
“I know, honey,” I said and opened my arms to her as
she burst into tears.
The baby awoke as we were talking and she sat down
with little Carolyn and opened her shirt to nurse her.
“If it weren’t for you,” she told her daughter, “I’d be
killing a bottle of bourbon about now.”
Her eyes filled up with tears again. “I guess I’ll call
Linda Allred tonight. Tell her to add another statistic to
her list.”
When I got home that evening, Daddy was sitting on
the porch to watch Dwight and Cal finish cleaning out
the interior of the truck before carefully smoothing a
Hurricanes sticker to the back bumper. Cal wanted to
clamp our flag on the window, but Dwight vetoed that
idea.
“Save it for Deborah’s car,” he said. “My truck’s not
a moving billboard.”
Bandit was frisking around the yard in an unsuccess-
ful attempt to get Blue and Ladybell to romp with him,
but those two hounds were too old and dignified for
such frivolity.
Dwight followed me into our bedroom while I
changed out of heels and panty hose into jeans and
sneakers. “You hear about Karen Braswell?”
I nodded. “Thanks for going over there yourself.”
“She gonna be okay?”
“The baby helps.”
301
MARGARET MARON
“God, Deb’rah. What’s it gonna take? This is the
second one in three months. We took his damn guns.
Where’d he get that one?”
“Don’t beat up on yourself, Dwight. You said it your-
self. There’s no stopping somebody who’s determined
to kill and doesn’t care about the consequences. If it
hadn’t been a gun, it would have been a knife or even
his bare hands.”
We went back outdoors and the blessed mundane
flowed back over us. Cal was antsy to leave because they
planned to pick up a new pair of sneakers for him on the
way in. The lower the sun sank, the cooler the air be-
came and my sweater was suddenly not thick enough.
“Come on in,” I told Daddy, “and I’ll fix us some-
thing to eat.”
“Naw, Maidie’s making supper. Why don’t you come
eat with us? You know there’s always extra.”
“Okay,” I said, but he didn’t get up.
“Are we expecting somebody?” I asked.
