She had a miscarriage and for the next three days she stayed in bed. I only left her side when I had to use the bathroom or to get us something to eat or drink. I didn’t even go to work the following Monday.
“Son, why don’t you go on back to the store? Joyce will be fine and there’s nothing more you can do for her,” Millie told me the next day. “You look awful, so you need to do something for yourself before you get sick and we’ll have to nurse you, too.”
“Mama’s right, Odell. Go fishing or take a long drive,” Joyce suggested, still sounding as weak as a kitten. She was in bed with her head propped up on three pillows.
“Yeah,” I mumbled, giving her a thoughtful look. “Maybe I’ll do just that. I guess I should go check on Daddy.” Then I turned to my mother-in-law. “Millie, do you mind staying here for a few hours? Um . . . I ain’t been out to visit Daddy since last week, so I might even spend the night.”
“Boy, you know I don’t mind staying with my baby girl. Now you go on. You been cooped up in this house long enough.” Millie snapped her fingers and waved me to the door.
I didn’t feel good about leaving Joyce when I thought she needed me. But Betty Jean needed me too. I knew she was wondering why I hadn’t come to her house last Saturday like I had promised her I would. She didn’t have a telephone, but when I got on the road a few minutes later, it dawned on me that I could have called her sister at her job and gave her a message to give Betty Jean. I made a mental note to do that the next time something interfered with my plans. I prayed all the way to Hartville that she was all right and that she wouldn’t be too upset about me not showing up when I was supposed to.
She was mad as hell when she met me at her front door. “Oh, so you finally decided to come back, huh?” she hollered, rolling her neck and giving me one of the meanest looks I’d ever seen on a woman’s face. Her sister Alline came stomping into the living room. She looked just as pissed off as Betty Jean. I stood close to the door in case I had to make a run for it. They stood side by side in the middle of the floor, looking at me like I’d stole their last dollar.
I held my breath for a couple of seconds. “Alline, can I talk to your sister alone, please?” As far as I knew, Betty Jean’s big sister didn’t know I was married.
“Ain’t nothing you can say to her that you can’t say in front of me,” Alline snarled.
“Girl, please go on to work. You know more than enough of my business already,” Betty Jean said in a gentle tone. Alline huffed out a loud breath, grabbed her purse off the coffee table, and stomped out the front door.
“How much do she know about me?” I asked, moving closer to Betty Jean. I wanted to lean over and kiss her. But from the way her lips was poked out, she probably would have bit mine in two.
“You ain’t got to worry. She don’t know you got a wife. Even if she did, it wouldn’t be no big deal. Her last boyfriend had a wife and nine kids.”
“Well, let’s keep that part of your business from her as long as we can. If she find out I’m married, she might blab to the wrong people. And sooner or later, they’ll talk to somebody who might know people in Branson that know the MacPhersons and will tell them about us. And my butt would be theirs.”
“I ain’t going to tell my sister nothing about you that she don’t already know. Now why didn’t you show up last Saturday? I had baked some turkey wings and made cornbread dressing just like you asked me to.”
“Let me explain.” I held my hand up to her face. “I had a real emergency.” I was glad Betty Jean stayed quiet long enough for me to tell her about Joyce’s miscarriage.
“I’m sorry about your wife losing your baby, and I’m glad it wasn’t nothing more serious than that.” We sat down on the couch at the same time. Betty Jean gave me a sympathetic look and started rubbing my knee.
“What could be more serious than my wife losing my baby?”
“A bunch of things. I thought maybe you’d been in a car wreck, or had a run-in with some crazy peckerwood along the way,” she told me, giving me a hopeless look. “And, I thought maybe Joyce had found out about us.”
“Betty Jean, I don’t want you to worry about Joyce finding out about us. That ain’t going to happen. As long as I tell her everything she want to hear and keep treating her like a queen, she ain’t got no reason to think I’m involved with another woman.”
“Can I ask you something?” She stopped rubbing my knee.
“You can ask me anything you want.”
“Am I the only other woman?”
“Huh?”
“You been with anybody else since you married Joyce?”
“Goodness gracious no! Why? And what difference would it make? I love you and you the only other woman in my life except my wife.”
“And you really love us both?”
“Damn right I do.”
“Men who really love their wives don’t cheat on them.”
“Look, you can think whatever you want. But I really do love my wife and I really do love you. I’m going to be with both of y’all until the day I die. Happy?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
Chapter 24
Joyce
I HAD LOST MY BABY TWO WEEKS AGO, BUT I WAS STILL HAPPIER THAN I ever thought I’d be. And, I was confident that I’d get pregnant again real soon. Right after
