Ellery Queen. The Best of Suspense

Florence V. Mayberry The Grass Widow

I used to watch Jim Gibbs walk past our house on his way to visit Mrs. Tichenor. Back then I didn’t call him Jim. I was only fourteen and he was around thirty — thirty-one to be exact — and I was trained to say Uncle or Aunt to old people if they were close friends and Mr. or Mrs. or Miss if they weren’t. So Jim was Mr. Gibbs to me.

He went by every day to visit Mrs. Tichenor. Shameful, folks in town said, all except his relatives and maybe they did too on the quiet. Mrs. Tichenor was a grass widow, which is what they called a divorced woman in those days. Or so she said, but she might not be divorced at all, according to the gossip I heard — did anyone ever see her divorce papers? Dying too. Her lungs were bad and Doc Williams told his wife, who told everyone, that Mrs. Tichenor was likely on her deathbed.

With all that facing Jim Gibbs, it was a shame that a well-off man like Jim, who belonged to one of the best families in West Texas, would take up with her. Besides, he scarcely knew her. He met her at a church sociable before she got so housebound, and fell head over heels in love with her then and there.

Actually — and that was odd in a town of less than 2.000 people — I had never seen Mrs. Tichenor. She had been in town not quite a year, had come from Pennsylvania to Texas to get well.

She didn’t go to the same church as our family, and I was in school most of the time. By the time I heard enough about her to be curious she was already too sick to leave her house, and before that she stayed home and did what fancy sewing anyone would give her to eke out the little she had brought with her.

I heard Papa tell Mama that, seeing he owned the bank, he always knew how much money everybody had. But with Jim Gibbs visiting her every day, carrying an armload of groceries — well, she didn’t need much.

I heard, too, that she had a little girl. The child was young, so her minister’s wife said, and stayed with relatives back in Pennsylvania. Back then, in a little Texas town like ours, folks didn’t pay too much mind to germs, but the minister’s wife said Mrs. Tichenor did. She knew she had consumption and wouldn’t let the child be with her.

This was just before World War I and ideas about morals were different then. Divorced women weren’t looked on kindly, sick or well. Folks figured they had feisty ways else they would have clung to their husbands till death did them part. My mother did with my father.

Jim always walked fast, or rode fast on Big Ben, on his way to Mrs. Tichenor’s, and slow when he left. Once I was sitting under the lilac bush as he walked towards town in the twilight and I saw tears on his cheeks. It was the first time I had ever seen a man cry, and it was especially shocking for a man like Jim to do it. He was tall and strong, good-looking in a redheaded kind of way, a cowman who could ride range with the best of his hired hands, mend fence, brand, and with a hard business head on his shoulders besides, so my father said. My father should have known because he had a hard business head too — he owned half of the town and ran the other half.

When I watched Jim walk by crying, I thought: Mr. Gibbs is in love with that bad woman and she’s been mean to him they say sick people complain a lot. Seeing him that way gave me shivers, because at fourteen I was getting ready for love. It was a terrible feeling, but beautiful at the same time. I began to wish someone would love me like that.

My mother felt sorry for Mrs. Tichenor — said she was too sick to do for herself and Jesus taught, let him without sin cast the first stone, and besides Jim Gibbs never visited her at night, only in the daytime when a neighbor might drop in on them any minute. For instance my mother did, carrying with her a slab of pic or a plate of chicken and dumplings or a fresh loaf of bread — different things, so the poor soul would have something decent to eat. But Mama would never let me go with her.

One afternoon my father came home early from the bank and found my mother gone. When she came back with her empty dish, he bullied her until she told him where she had been. He railed around and ordered her never to set foot again in that whore’s house. “What’s a whore, Mama, what’s it mean?” I asked after my father had stormed back downtown.

“Katy, what were you listening for?” Mama asked sharply, her eyes pink.

“I was out in the porch swing. How could I help hearing with Papa yelling?”

“Don’t be sassy, young lady, talking about your Papa that way!” Mama always stuck up for Papa no matter what he did or said, and he was a terror.

“What’s a whore?” I asked Gladys, my best chum at school.

“Oo-o-ooh, Katy Prendergast, you’re talking nasty, and said a bad word!” she screamed. She did it in the school yard and next thing I was in the principal’s office and he was asking what I said, and I wouldn’t tell him because he was a man. Neither would Gladys for the same reason, but she told me she was never going to speak to me again and would tell her mother who would tell my mother. But next day she threw her arms around my neck and cried and said she hoped to die, she’d never tell on me. Only she still wouldn’t say what whore meant.

Jim Gibbs usually visited Mrs. Tichenor along about four in the afternoon, most times bringing groceries. Once I saw him earning a sack that had Sotheby’s Yard Goods and Dresses printed on it. Clothes for Mrs. Tichenor, must be. Was that what whore meant? A man buying clothes for a woman who wasn’t his wife?

A few times Jim came with Dr. Williams, riding Big Ben alongside the doctor’s buggy. One of those times, after the doctor came out of Mrs. Tichenor’s house — she lived just up the road from us — I watched the pair of them standing at the gate a long time. Then Jim went back into the house, his head bent and his shoulders slumped as though he carried a heavy load.

Mama was always in our house or in the garden when I came home from school. I was the youngest child by twelve years, my brother and sister already married and living in Amarillo and Dallas. My father had laid down the law, as he did about everything. He told Mama to always be home when I was out of school — and so must I, no lollygagging around with schoolmates, girls couldn’t be trusted alone, no telling what they’d be up to.

So it was a shock one day when I came home and Mama wasn’t there. She came back soon, though, running down the path from the direction of Mrs. Tichenor’s house, pink in the face and out of breath with hurry.

“You’ve been up at Mrs. Tichenor’s again, haven’t you, Mama?”

“Hush!” she said, scared like, looking around as though my father might be home. “Mind your manners, Miss, don’t you be questioning your Mama.”

“You have been! And after Papa said you couldn’t.”

“So I have!” she said, as flip as I might have said it to anyone but Papa. “So I have. The poor thing, she can barely down a bowl of soup. Jim Gibbs does his best, but he don’t know how to take care of a sick woman, shouldn’t be doing it anyway. Now if you know what’s good for you, you’ll not tell your father a thing about it. It was only my Christian duty.”

I had no intention of telling my father. But I saw my chance — to set eyes on Mrs. Tichenor. Perhaps if I could see her I would know what a whore is. “I won’t tell, Mama, if—”

Mama looked startled, “If what, Miss Sassbox?”

“If you’ll let me go with you tomorrow when you take something for her to eat. Mama, I bet you’ve been taking her things all along, probably every day. Please let me go with you, Mama. If Papa comes home before we do we can just say we’ve been — oh, anywhere, visiting, shopping. Mama, if she’s dying like they say, it can’t hurt just to see her.”

Mama looked uncertain. “They say consumption is catching.”

“Only if you eat out of their dishes without scalding them first, or they cough in your face. I read about it. Please!”

“I’ll see.”

“Tomorrow?”

“We’ll see. Maybe you’ll sass your teacher like you do me and be kept after school. Then it’ll be too late for visiting.”

I figured then she would let me go with her. I was never kept after school. I was a good scholar. Besides, my father was chairman of the school board.

I was so excited at school next day that I shivered off and on even though the late spring day was warm. “Are you sick, Katy?” the teacher asked. “If you don’t feel well, perhaps you had better go on home now.” If it had been afternoon when she asked that, I would have taken her up. But it was morning and there was still noon dinner to be eaten with Papa. “I feel fine. Just a little draft maybe.” Which was silly, it was warm as all getout.

Mama had chicken and dumplings for noon dinner, green onions and radishes out of our garden, peas in cream sauce, lemon pic with high brown-tipped meringue. The dinner put Papa in a good mood, he didn’t growl at us once. “Good gal,” he said to Mama, and she blushed. Maybe from being pleased, maybe from a guilty conscience, maybe from both.

That afternoon at school I put on a little for the teacher — I shivered every time she looked my way. “Katy, you are shivering! You certain you feel all right?”

“Well — maybe I should go home.”

I walked slow across the school yard in case the teacher was watching, then ran the rest of the way home. Leaving early was better — no schoolmates to see Mama and me go into Mrs. Tichenor’s house. “I got let out early, was all through with my class work,” I fibbed to Mama. “Let’s go now before there’s a chance of Papa coming home.”

“I declare,” Mama said uncertainly. “Truth is, I’d been meaning to go up early to keep you from coming along. But now you’re here, I suppose—” She turned back into the kitchen and picked up a little basket with a white fringed napkin across it. “Poor thing, she don’t eat enough to keep a bird alive, but chicken and dumplings may tempt her.”

It was queer the way I felt as Mama and I walked to Mrs. Tichenor’s house. As though I were taking a long journey into some foreign country. Scared and excited. Jim’s horse, Big Ben, was tied to the hitching post in front of her house, tossing his head against flies that lit on his neck. Big Ben’s coat was red as fire, like Jim Gibbs’ hair, and he was a real beauty. Fire in Big Ben too — finest horse in all that cow country, folks said. So Mama and I knew Jim had come early too to visit Mrs. Tichenor.

“Mind your manners,” Mama whispered as she knocked on the screen door. “And stop staring.”

It was Jim who came to the door. “Howdy, Mrs. Prendergast, Miss Katy, come right in.”

“I brought a little something for Mrs. Tichenor,” Mama said, holding out the basket but walking right inside at the same time. “How’s she feeling today?”

“Well—” Jim hesitated like he didn’t want to go on with that, and looked over his shoulder towards the back of the house. “Not too—”

And there she was. Just suddenly. Standing in the archway that led into the back parlor. The wide opening framed her almost like she was on a stage, with the sun from the sitting-room’s west window floodlighting her face. My tongue turned dry, and I realized my mouth was hanging open. I shut it and swallowed. Mrs. Tichenor was as beautiful as an angel.

All my life long, either before or after, I never saw another woman as beautiful as Mrs. Tichenor. No wonder Jim fell in love with her at first sight. And stayed in love.

She was wearing a loose white robe, its sleeves wide and full like wings, which helped the angel look. Her hair hung down her back in soft black waves, and her eyes were just as black. Creamy pale skin, except for a pink flush on her cheeks. Slender and almost as tall as Jim. She was so beautiful she made me hurt.

“You’re so kind to me, Mrs. Prendergast, I do thank you.” Her voice was beautiful too, soft and breathy with a city sound to it. “And is this young lady your daughter whom I’ve never met before?”

“Yes, my youngest. Katy — Katy, meet Mrs. Tichenor.”

“Pleased to meet you, Ma’am,” I whispered.

“Won’t you sit down and visit a while?” When Mrs. Tichenor smiled, her eyes glowed like there were soft-shaded lamps behind them.

“Thank you, but we have to get right back home,” Mama said nervously. “Got some garden stuff to fix for supper. Shall I just put this chicken and dumplings in the kitchen? Brought gravy to go with it — tastes pretty good heated up.”

“I’ll take them, Ma’am,” Jim said, smiling. You could tell he liked Mama.

“Oh, well, I could—” She handed the basket to Jim. “No hurry about getting the basket and dishes back. I can pick them up tomorrow.”

“I’ll carry them back,” Jim said.

Mama looked flustered, like a pin was stuck in her and she didn’t want to let on. “Oh, no, please don’t bother. I’ll take them now, save you the trip. I’ll just put the chicken and gravy in something here—”

“Yes, that would be better,” Mrs. Tichenor said, still smiling, hut the lamps had turned out behind her eyes. Anybody but a fool could tell that Mama didn’t want somebody at our house to know she had come here. “You shouldn’t trouble so much for me, but I’m truly grateful. I haven’t felt like eating but now I do — everything you cook is so delicious. What a pretty daughter you have — you must be very proud of her.”

“Pretty is as pretty does,” Mama said prissily. Then flushed. Because there was never anyone so pretty as Mrs. Tichenor. “Come along, Katy, I’ve things laid out for you to do.”

I wanted to go close to Mrs. Tichenor, to shake her hand, tell her I thought she was beautiful, and I was sure she just had to be good. But nobody I ever knew did anything like that, make such a show of themselves. So I just bobbed my head and mumbled, “Pleased to meet you, Ma’am.” I didn’t realize until I was on the front porch that I had backed out of the room.

Mama whirled on me and whispered, “Don’t look so dauncey, girl. You look like that and Papa will know for sure we’ve been up to something.”

Once we were outside the yard I said, “Oh, Mama, she’s so beautiful, she’s got to be good inside. You think she’s good too — that’s why you take things to her every day.”

“Hush! Not every day.”

“And God shouldn’t let her die!” To my horror I began to fight back tears.

“Katy Prendergast, stop that! I should never have taken you along. If your father hears about it—” Mama’s voice trailed off and her face crinkled with worry as she looked at me. “Now don’t fret about it. She may get better — folks do sometimes, even with consumption. Just put your mind on helping me get Papa’s supper.”

I wasn’t much help though, because my mind was still up the street with Mrs. Tichenor. Mama fussed, saying I was dreaming over the radishes and onions, she might better have done everything herself. But when Papa came home for supper he was in a good mood for once and pulled on my long heavy braid as he came into the dining room. I yanked away and said sharply, “Don’t!”

He looked surprised, because if Papa pulled on your braid it was considered a compliment. “Humph!” he grunted. He walked on into the kitchen and I heard him ask, “What’s the matter with that girl of yours, Mattie? Kind of sassed me.”

“Sassed you! Oh, I don’t think she meant anything, Mr. Prendergast. It’s just her age, growing up, you know, that’s all.”

He didn’t mention it again, but at the supper table he kept looking at me over his glasses, like he was expecting me to say, “Excuse me, Papa.” I didn’t say anything out loud. But inside I was saying, I hate you, I hate you for being mean about Mrs. Tichenor.

Suddenly I thought of the one person I knew who really loved Mrs. Tichenor, no matter what anyone said. Jim Gibbs.

Next afternoon I hurried home from school, looked up the street toward the Tichenor house, and didn’t see Big Ben hitched outside or the doctor’s buggy. So I made it my business to hang around in the front yard by the picket fence to see when Jim came. After a while I heard hooves plopping on the road. It was Big Ben, his shiny red neck arched, and Jim on his back with his big hat tilted to one side of his red hair. I tell you, they were a sight. Both handsome, red-haired, Big Ben proud-stepping, Jim sitting easy but proud too. Jim tipped his hat to me, just like I was grown up. I smiled and said, “How-de-do.”

He tied Big Ben to the iron hitching post beside Mrs. Tichenor’s front gate, then clicked his high-heeled boots up her walk, his steps light and quick as though he were in a hurry to get there. He didn’t knock, just opened the screen door and went in as though it was his house. The door shut softly and I felt lonely, left out. I wanted to go see Mrs. Tichenor too.

Why couldn’t I? Why couldn’t I take something, like a present, and go too?

But what did I have that was all mine, that would really be a gift from me? Funny. My papa was one of the richest men in the county, and I had nothing of my own to give away except — Quickly, before I got too scared, I hurried onto our porch, softly opened the front screen, tiptoed upstairs to my room, and opened the red velvet box that held my lavaliere with the pearl in it. Mama’s younger sister who lived out in California had sent it to me. We didn’t see her once in a blue moon, so she wouldn’t know if I gave it away. Besides, she didn’t like Papa and Papa didn’t like her. He didn’t like the lavaliere either so I never wore it.

I took it, velvet box and all, tiptoed back downstairs, out the front door, and ran up the street, my heart pounding. Big Ben snorted as I passed him and I jumped a foot. Then slowly, like a lady making a neighborly call, I went up the steps and knocked timidly on Mrs. Tichenor’s front door.

The knock must have been too light. Anyway, no one answered. Voices came from beyond the back parlor in words I couldn’t make out — spaces of silence, then words again. I turned to leave. But across the road there was Mrs. Dilson, our neighbor, walking up from town. If she saw me, she would be sure to ask Mama what I was doing there by myself — or worse, ask my father when she went to the bank. I opened the screen door and slipped inside.

A few steps across the rug and I reached the archway into the back parlor. No one was there, but the voices were plainer. Now I could make out what they were saying.

“Jim, it would be wicked.” Mrs. Tichenor’s voice was sad, not crying, but like an echo of crying done long ago. “The doctor won’t say, but I know. I am dying, Jim. So don’t talk about marriage. I don’t intend to be a bride who may turn into a corpse in days or weeks. And I’ll not let you be burdened with a child not your own.”

“Melissa, hush! I’ll help you get well. If we’re married I can be with you day and night, looking after you. And your child would be my child. Besides, the old biddies would stop clucking their stories and making you miserable.”

“No! If I die, I don’t want it on my soul—”

“Good God, what about my soul! Think how I’d blame myself if I didn’t do everything I could for you! Melissa, Melissa, I want you for my wife, no matter what.”

I walked backwards, very softly, towards the porch. Stopped, because the voices were quiet and I was afraid the floor might creak.

“Please! You said you love me. Prove it,” Jim implored.

“But I am!” Her voice was desperate. “I am—”

Something smothered her voice, and there was another silence before she spoke again uncertainly, “Oh, Jim, I don’t know—”

“I know. Please!”

“It isn’t right, not fair.”

“I’m going now. To the courthouse to get the license, the papers, whatever you need to sign. I’ll bring the preacher here and we’ll be married tonight.”

“It’s wrong, it isn’t the way to start a marriage.”

“It is! Because it’s the way we’ll start ours. Melissa, I’m going for the papers now. Before you change your mind.”

“But I didn’t—”

I heard his feet move across the floor of the unseen room and I looked around frantically for a hiding place. A settee sat crosswise in a corner of the sitting room. I scooted under it, deep into the corner, and doubled up. With my face pressed into the rug I watched his boots stride across the room, heard the screen door creak open, then slap against the wooden frame of the doorway.

For what seemed forever I kept my breathing shallow, listening, and heard no movement, no sound. I crawled from beneath the settee and moved stealthily to the door. As I touched the screen, my neck prickled a warning and I whirled around. Mrs. Tichenor stood in the wide opening between the two parlors, her large black eyes startled, a hand at her breast. “Oh!” she said, her voice soft and raspy, like a chapped hand rubbing on silk. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“No, ma’am,” I said. “I knocked but no one heard.”

“Didn’t — didn’t Mr. Gibbs see you?”

“No, ma’am. I — well, I–I brought something for you. This.” And I held out the red velvet box.

She took the box, looking at me uncertainly. Then she opened it and saw the lavaliere. “Oh, how lovely! It’s so pretty and delicate. Katy — that is your name, isn’t it? — Katy, it’s so lovely that I mustn’t take it from you. It looks like you, it belongs with you. You must keep it, Katy.”

“Please — it’s all I have to give you. I wanted to give you something because—” I choked, unable to tell her why.

“I’m so grateful,” she whispered. “Truly. But when you wear it, it will be special for me. As though it belongs to both of us.” She handed it back to me. “Now it does belong to both of us, because I’ve made it a present back to you.”

As I took it she smiled so sweetly, looked so beautiful, I had to tell her the truth. Like, you wouldn’t tell lies to an angel, would you? “I was really hiding under your settee. Because nobody answered the door when I knocked, I came in and — and heard what you and Mr. Gibbs said.” The rest came out in an impassioned plea. “Oh, please marry Mr. Gibbs. He can take care of you!”

She took my hand, squeezed it gently. “Then if you heard, you know why I’m afraid to. A wife should help her man, not be a burden to him.”

“But he takes care of you now. Wouldn’t it be the same burden? Only you’d be married.”

She looked into my eyes for what seemed a long time. Then she walked slowly to the settee and sat down. Her hands were trembling and she locked them together on her lap. “Trust a child to get at the truth,” she said. “You’re right. It is a burden now.”

“But he likes taking care of you. Even better than riding Big Ben.”

She stood up, moved unsteadily towards the back parlor. As she passed me she said, “Thank you, Katy. For everything.” And went on, out of sight, into a room that I discovered later was her bedroom. I left too, running down the path, up onto our veranda.

Mama was in our kitchen, starting supper. “Set the table, Katy. It’s lodge night for Papa — he’ll be home soon.”

Fried chicken, mashed potatoes, cream gravy, cole slaw, apple pie. Hot biscuits, of course, Papa wouldn’t touch a meal that didn’t have hot bread. Mostly Papa grunted at mealtimes and put his eyebrows together if anybody talked, but Mama’s good food must have had a mellowing effect, or else the news was too much for him to hold back.

“What do you think Jim Gibbs did this afternoon, Mattie?” he asked, not expecting any answer. Papa never needed anyone’s answer, least of all his family’s.

“Why, I’ve no idea, Mr. Prendergast,” Mama said, looking guilty at the mention of Jim Gibbs whom she saw more times than Papa knew about.

“Blame fool went for a wedding license at the courthouse. For him and that — woman up the road. Said she was too sick to come with him, he’d take any paper needed back to her and return it after she signed it. Girl in the office started to give it to him but Joe Miller” — Mr. Miller was the County Clerk — “came in just then, so Jim told him what he wanted. Well, Joe’s known Jim since he was born and naturally like a good friend of the Gibbses, he warned Jim to take second thought — could be the woman wasn’t actually divorced, could get himself in a pack of trouble with bigamy. But Jim’s got a temper like his hair. Hauled off, slammed Joe against the wall right in the county office.”

Mama’s eyes were big as saucers. “Hurt Joe?”

“Lump on the back of his head. Jim banged him good, then tore off like a wild stallion. So Joe called me and asked if anything ought to be done about it, because Jim needed to be saved from himself, getting mixed up with another man’s leavings. I told Joe as Mayor of this town I’d have none of that carrying on. Went over, gathered up Joe, and we swore out a warrant with the sheriff on Jim. Had it served right off. Like I told you, Mattie, when you wanted to traipse up there carrying victuals to that trashy woman. Fool around trash, you end up trash.” He fixed his bleak harsh gaze on me. “Hear that, young lady? Keep that in mind.”

Except abstractly, simply because he was my father, I never really liked my father. That night I hated him. Mama’s food knotted in my stomach and before I could do anything about it, there it was. All back in my plate with my father leaping from his chair, eyes blazing in a dead-white face.

My timid, self-effacing mother sprang up and set herself squarely between me and him. “Shame on you, Mr. Prendergast! Frightening the child, saying such things. Now leave this instant before you make her worse!”

Papa’s mouth dropped open and his eyes took on the surprised, hurt look of a spoiled child who for the first time has been refused something. Without another word he stalked out of the room and out of the house, just as I was sick again.

As Mama tucked me in bed, I asked, “Will they put Mr. Gibbs in jail?” It was a terrible thought. Who would take care of Mrs. Tichenor if they did?

“I doubt that,” she said. “Not with Jim Gibbs being who he is. Besides, likely he didn’t hurt Joe Miller much. Now stop fretting over what your Papa said.”

“Do you think they’ll still get married? Even if—” I started to say, even if Mrs. Tichenor said she wouldn’t.

“Hush!” Mama said, trying to look stem. “You’re working yourself up for nothing. Jim’s not going to jail and whether they get married or not is none of your business.”

Silence dropped between us, singing in my ears in that soft lonely way like crickets singing in the grass when you’re all alone except for them and yourself. Finally I broke it. “Do you think — she’ll really die? Maybe she wouldn’t if she got married. If she was happy she’d want to keep living.”

“Maybe. Now shut your eyes and go to sleep. I’ll just run up the street a bit to see if I can do anything for the poor soul, take her a little something to eat.”

She blew out the lamp and went downstairs. I could hear her moving around the kitchen. At last the front screen creaked shut and I jumped out of bed, ran to the window, and watched the pale moth look of Mama’s light dress move up the path until the night swallowed it. I dressed fast, hurried down the dark stairway, out of the house, and up to Mrs. Tichenor’s.

I avoided the front porch for fear I might meet Mama coming out, and slipped around the side of the house. All the blinds were up and I saw no one in the back parlor window, so I kept on around the house, past another corner, and came to an open lighted window. Through it I saw Mrs. Tichenor in a big brass bed, her face as white as the sheet drawn up to her neck. At the foot of the bed Mama and Jim Gibbs were looking at each other, Mama big-eyed and solemn, Jim’s face hard.

“She says she won’t sign the paper for the license,” Jim was saying. “Not here, or anywhere. I’ve been begging her to let me bundle her up and take her to the next county. We’ll get married there. But she won’t! Not after that damn—”

“Jim! Please!” Mrs. Tichenor’s voice was thin and raspy.

“After that damn Joe Miller hiked over to your husband — begging your pardon, Mrs. Prendergast, but Bill’s a damn prig and he egged on Joe. So the pair of them got the sheriff to send his deputy right here — right in front of Melissa, serving the paper on me. Now Melissa says no wedding. Ever. Says she’s brought nothing but trouble on me.”

He faced Mrs. Tichenor. “God, honey, can’t you see it’s trouble for me if you don’t marry me? I care about you, not Bill Prendergast and Joe Miller, they can burn in hell! Don’t let ’em have the satisfaction of stopping our marriage.”

He turned back to Mama. “I hate saying this, Mrs. Prendergast, because you’re as fine a lady as I know. It’s nothing to do with you except to show you what happened. But outside the house, as the deputy left here, he told me it was your husband who insisted on the warrant being served. Said he’d have no such marriage on his street. And Melissa standing at the door, hearing that!”

“Quiet down, Mr. Gibbs,” Mama said softly but firmly. “We’re upsetting Mrs. Tichenor. But if this will be any help to you, I want you both to know I’d consider it an honor to be your witness if this lady does decide to marry you.”

Jim touched Mama’s hand, just for a moment, then walked around the bed, sat on its edge, and gently held the sheet-covered shoulders. “Hear that, Melissa? Please, Melissa.”

Her head moved slowly from side to side on the pillow, her profiled features like those of a marble face. They were all so quiet that I feared they would hear my breathing, so I stepped deeper into the shadows. “I need to be alone,” she said finally. “I need to think — things out. By myself.”

He just sat there, as though he couldn’t bear to move.

“I’ll let you know soon, Jim. It’s — I’m so tired.”

“Tomorrow? Early?”

“Soon.”

He leaned down and kissed her full on the mouth, right in front of Mama. Then he followed Mama into the next room. Mrs. Tichenor called, “Jim, will you close the door?” He turned back, went to the lamp, leaned over to blow it out. “No, leave the light on. I don’t like the dark.” She tried to laugh. “The boogeyman, you know.”

Jim gave her a sickly smile, like the way I felt. All of a sudden I was thinking how dark being dead must be. He went over to the bed, kissed her again, and went out.

I tiptoed back around the house, figuring it was better to leave before Mama started home. I passed the back-parlor window, saw Mama and Jim sitting beside a marble-topped table, Mama looking sympathetic, Jim talking and rubbing his forehead as though to rid it of an ache. Since Mama wasn’t leaving yet, I turned back to Mrs. Tichenor’s window.

She had thrown the sheet aside and was sitting on the side of the bed, her hand on her chest like she had to hold it together. After a little, maybe a minute, maybe longer, she stood up and walked unsteadily to a tall chest of drawers with a mirror on its top. As she stared into the mirror I could see her full face, see her lips moving without sound. Her eyes closed, her head bowed, and her lips kept moving.

It made me ashamed to spy on her prayer, when it belonged just to her and God, so I moved away, swallowing tears. At the corner of the house I stopped, held my hand over my mouth to muffle a sob, then moved on again, past the back-parlor window, and turned toward the front of the house.

I knew what it was immediately. Guns aren’t strange in Texas. It was a shot coming from the other side of the house.

I whirled back, oblivious of the noise I made, and reached the bedroom window as Jim, then Mama, ran through the bedroom door. Jim bent to the floor, took the whiteclad figure in his arms, his face as white as Mrs. Tichenor’s gown. “Get Doc Williams! Quick!” he yelled at Mama.

But I was already on the way, screaming as I ran, “I’ll fetch him, I’ll fetch him!”

The screen door slammed behind me as someone came out on the porch, but I didn’t turn to see who it was. I ran, ran, my legs weightless, seeming not a pan of me. Once I fell as my toe stubbed on a tree root, but I felt no pain. All the time screaming. “Dr. Williams, Dr. Williams, Dr. Williams!”

He was already on his veranda when I reached his house and I gasped, “Mrs. Tichenor! She shot herself!”

He dashed inside, came out with his satchel, ran beside me, then ahead as I clutched a pain in my side and stopped to catch my breath.

But running did no good. Because Mrs. Tichenor was dead. Someone — the house seemed filled with people — told me so as I came in. When I reached the bedroom, Jim was sitting on the side of the bed, holding her in his arms, rocking her back and forth as though she was a child he had to comfort.

Suddenly my father was in the bedroom too. News travels fast in a town like ours. A lot of people, not just neighbors, were in the room too, seeming sucked there as though disaster had created a vacuum. My father’s face was yellow-white, his eyes fierce, his thin lips drawn against his teeth. He said, “Mattie, get yourself and that girl out of this house!”

Jim turned, stared at my father. Then in a swift muscular movement he lifted the frail dead body and carried it to my father. Jim’s face looked as dead as Mrs. Tichenor’s — not angry, just dead.

“Take a good look, Bill,” he said. “Fill your eyes. So you’ll remember forever how she looked the night you murdered her. I’d like to send you on your way tonight too. But that would be sacrilege, going along with her. I hope you live a long, long time. So you’ll have plenty of time to remember you killed my girl. And I swear, Bill, I’m going to stick close so every time you see me you’ll remember you’re a murderer.”

He turned back to the bed, put the limp body on it, then sat, not moving, looking at her.

My father grabbed Mama’s shoulder, shoved her through the door, and jerked his head at me to follow.

The three of us walked silently through the house, out to the porch, down the path, Papa and Mama ahead, me following.

I lifted my hand, held it stiffly with finger pointed, as Mrs. Tichenor must have held her revolver. But not aimed at me. At my father. Pulled an imaginary trigger, gloated as an unseen bullet pierced his head and splayed through those fierce eyes. I imagined him falling to the ground, lying in a dreadful dark pool. And I strode forward, stamping across a body that had no substance, whispering softly, “Murderer! Murderer!”

Now Jim’s dead too. I buried him last week after forty years of marriage. I suppose that’s why all this comes back to mind. Jim was a good husband. Kind. Treated me fine, me and our children. But I never remember him saying he loved me.

But I remember right enough the promise he made to Papa. Everybody said how nice it was I got me a man who was so fond of my parents. Especially of my father. Jim dropping in every day at the bank, spending every Sunday with Papa on the front porch while I visited with Mama, inside, or helping him garden. Even joined the same lodge. Then, after my father had his stroke, sitting hour after hour with him in the bedroom. Folks never seemed to notice that Jim never talked with Papa, just looked at him, with a kind of twisted half smile on his face.

Once I almost told Jim. About how I shot my father the night Mrs. Tichenor died. But I figured it wouldn’t have changed him. Towards me, I mean. I never held any grudge about it though. I loved her too. Besides, in a way she gave Jim to me.