“What was said?” Now Odell’s voice sounded hollow and nervous.
“They yip-yapped about how much time you spend away from me. Milton had the nerve to ask if it bothered me. I told him it didn’t, but then I said something about you being a part-time husband and how I was going to start going fishing with you, and out to your Daddy’s house more often.”
“I hope you don’t start letting people we don’t even know that well give you advice.”
“I’m not worried about that happening. They’re too ignorant for me to take seriously. There is nothing they could say that I would consider good advice anyway. Especially if it concerns our marriage.” I was glad Odell’s body felt more relaxed now. “I just want to know one thing and I hope you’ll be honest with me like you’ve always been.”
He got stiff again. “What?”
“Do you still love me as much as you did the day we got married?”
“Baby, I couldn’t love you no more if I tried.”
Chapter 46
Odell
I WAS STILL FEELING PRETTY STRESSED, BUT I MANAGED TO FALL ASLEEP a few minutes after Joyce. I wished I hadn’t. It was one of the roughest nights of my life. I had a nightmare with Milton chasing me down a long dark road, yelling and screaming at me and demanding more money. Me and him was both naked and the only two people in the dream that I could see. But I could hear women screaming on both sides of the road. Finally, one of the women floated out to the road and started running along with me. It was Betty Jean. She was screaming and hollering at me too. Then two more women entered the dream: Joyce and Yvonne. That was enough to wake me up around four in the morning.
I didn’t want to face Joyce until I got my bearings back on track, so I snuck out of the house before she woke up.
I made it to the store a hour early, so I sat in my office and read the Bible that I kept on top of the cabinet that contained the bogus and doctored-up paperwork I kept on file. My daddy told me one time that God answered all prayers when people asked for something, but sometimes he said no. I prayed that God would answer my prayer, which was for me to keep my double life a secret. He’d allowed me to get away with it for over five years, so I saw no reason why He would let things fall apart now.
By nine a.m. when I opened the store, I felt better. But each time I heard a customer enter, I almost jumped out of my skin. All kinds of crazy thoughts started dancing around in my head. The worst one was: What if somebody else from Branson saw me with Betty Jean and the boys? Would I have to pay them off too? Giving Milton two months’ rent had really put a dent in my finances, but I was overjoyed that that was all he wanted. I had no idea how I was going to pay Betty Jean’s rent and the rest of her expenses for the next two months and still have enough money in my pocket to pay my own bills, and take Joyce out a few times. I had to come up with a plan and I had to come up with one quick. Then it hit me like a thunderbolt. I was in charge of the bookkeeping, so nobody but me knew how much money was coming in and how much was going out. This little problem with Milton could turn out to be a blessing in disguise. My in-laws being so loosey-goosey was going to pay off in a big way for me. After the cashiers turned in their drawers to me at the end of each day, I could do whatever I wanted with that money. It would be like having a great big personal piggy bank. Shit. Mac still didn’t trust banks. When I went to his house and handed him that paper bag every Friday evening with the week’s earnings, he didn’t even count it. He just snatched it out of my hand and tossed it on the coffee table. One week, when I went over the day after I’d dropped off the profits, the paper bag was still laying on the coffee table. And, according to Joyce, he’d even misplaced a few bags among all that junk he and my mother-in-law hoarded. I had advised her to find out where they stashed the money, because if something happened to them before she got that information, she’d have a major problem on her hands trying to find it.
Joyce was going to inherit a lot, but what if she decided she didn’t want to stay married to me? What if she got so desperate for a baby, she thought she’d have better luck with a different husband? These were some of the thoughts running through my head while I sat at my desk counting the money I had in my wallet. I was trying to decide how much I was going to give Betty Jean so she could buy the new furniture she’d been begging for all year. I realized I needed to update my backup plan. At ten-thirty a.m., somebody knocked on my door and I opened it right away.
It was Sadie. Standing next to her was Artherine Miller, a bothersome customer who shopped in the store several times a week. And, she complained about something several times a week. “What is it?” I gazed at the Miller woman’s angry wrinkled face.
“Odell, I hate to bother you, but Sister Miller got a problem again,” Sadie told me, rolling her eyes.
I groaned under my breath. “Sister Miller, what’s the problem this time?”
“I bought two pounds of
