by Julie Howard
“Open carry state.” The man beside her spoke matter-of-factly. “The second amendment ranks right up there for importance in these parts.”
“She’s wearing a holster.” Her voice was tight, nervous. “Holding a gun. In the library.”
“You only get one shot at returning your books on time.” The man chuckled at his own joke. “And ever since her divorce, our librarian has a short fuse.”
The romance reader glanced their way; her gaze settled for a long moment on the man next to her. The women’s voices dropped to whispers; both turned to stare. Embarrassed to be caught watching, Meredith ducked her head. The man continued to eye the two women and seemed about to say something, but fell silent again, disappearing back into his own musings.
The librarian returned the gun to her holster and shuffled back around the counter. Meredith turned her attention to the computer screen. Knowing there was a gun-packing lady protecting this small town’s cache of books was just one more unusual element among many in her life.
I have to focus, she thought. Chemistry.
The man went back to talking about his wife, vacillating between grievances and praising how hard she worked. “Burns the midnight oil, for sure,” he continued. “I hardly see the woman anymore.”
A heaviness filled her chest, anxiety building over the need to finish her homework quickly now. She leaned forward, her nose a foot away from the computer screen to concentrate. The conversation between the two women at the counter dropped to a murmur. The man’s voice faded into the background as she continued on to another question and then another. Chemistry was mostly common sense when you came to think of it, she thought. You can't force attraction; there were internal forces at work, laws of nature ruling over everything. Figure out the right combination and, voila, a complex relationship was born.
Her attention drifted to the county sheriff. Curtis, with his broad shoulders and easy smile, had been her champion in more ways than one. Her feelings toward him had run the gamut, from admiration to fear to attraction to…something solid and substantial that she couldn’t define. There wasn’t a week that elapsed that he didn’t stop by for a visit and, bit by bit, they shared the narratives of their lives.
She opened up to him about her homeless childhood, alcoholic mother, and missing father. He told her about summers filled with fishing for steel head trout and his determination to be respected even though he was the youngest sheriff in the state. Meredith loved watching him talk, the way his eyes crinkled in humor and his earnest straightforwardness. To Curtis, the world was easy to navigate and people were intrinsically good. In less than a year he’d become an essential part of her life.
She wrenched her thoughts away from the sheriff. Why would he enter her head just then? Annoyed, she blinked and refocused on her chemistry homework. She answered the last question and breathed a sigh of relief.
At her side, the man continued to chatter, seemingly oblivious that she hadn’t responded in a while. “…good woman, loves hiking nature trails, goes to church faithfully. Almost obsessive, if you ask me.”
She logged off the computer, packed up her papers, and then turned to him, wondering if she should at least say goodbye. She didn’t know him and tried to ignore him as well as she could, but it would be rude to leave without saying something. This was Idaho, after all. Every interaction came with a choice: hostility or friendliness, with no middle ground. She didn’t want to come across as hostile to this stranger, someone she might meet in the grocery store someday.
Jowls quivered under his weak chin. He wore the stained and frayed shirt of someone detached from reality who spent his time alone in dark rooms playing online games. His expression was anxious and beseeching as though she should have a clear understanding of him and his life. Somehow, over the past hour and a half they’d been sitting next to each other, him playing video games and sharing his life story and her ignoring him the best she could, she had become his confessor and friend.
Meredith gave him what she hoped was an impartial-though-quasi-friendly smile. She reached for her purse and papers and rose from her chair. “Well. Nice talking with you.”
The man was lost in his own train of thought and seemed only slightly aware that she was leaving. He shook his head. “To make a long story short,” he said, “I think my wife is trying to kill me.”
Chapter Two
Legs weak, Meredith sank back into her chair. “Why would you think that?”
The memory of Brian’s murder and the struggle to prove her innocence was still fresh and painful. Shock waves from the previous spring’s events still rippled through her at times, catching her unawares.
He answered quickly. “I have no idea. I haven’t done anything to her. I haven’t done anything wrong, I mean.”
She heard a saying about a chill going up one’s spine, but it wasn’t until now that she realized such a thing could really happen. It was more of a prickling sensation, uneasiness rousing her body to a heightened state, and nothing really to do with being cold at all. “No, I mean, why do you think she’s trying to kill you? Has something happened? Has she done something specific?”
His eyes appeared almost haunted, frightened even. The man previously seemed more or less normal, maybe a bit chattier than usual, but she wondered if this was just one more strange country person. It seemed as though quirky people were drawn to remote locations, or maybe living in isolated areas drew out people’s latent peculiarities. Perhaps he ran around, starting conversations with strangers by telling them his wife was trying to murder him. It was certainly an attention getter. She tried to recall all that he said about his wife while she did her chemistry homework. As far as she remembered, all he talked about was that she worked a lot, liked to walk in the woods, didn’t care for his cooking and was religious. You don’t kill someone because of spaghetti and prayers.
He gave her a knowing look and brushed back a lock of greasy hair dangling into his face. “I catch her staring at me sometimes, in a way that tells me everything. When you’ve been married as long as us, you can just about read the other person’s mind. I know everything there is to know about this woman and I can tell you, she wants me gone. Dead.”
Meredith felt bad for him. But wishing wasn’t doing. She knew that well enough. Having a stranger tell her these things was disconcerting. The thought crossed her mind that this guy knew exactly who she was, and her history with a murdered spouse. Hadn’t she wanted Brian dead? Hadn’t he ended up murdered?
Anyway, the man never answered her question. The question. Had his wife attempted something specific? Meredith felt a sense of responsibility and resentment. After all, he behaved as though he were frightened. He’d mentioned the word murder. She couldn’t just get up and leave, even if she was pressed for time. In a situation like this, you couldn’t just say goodbye, nice talking with you, hope your wife doesn’t want to kill you. After all, a person was required to ask a few follow-up questions.
She tried to keep her voice steady. “You said she’s trying to kill you. What, exactly, has she done?”
He lifted his chin. She noted his salt-and-pepper hair, grown shaggy over his ears, and deep lines at the corners of his mouth. He exhibited the unhealthy, pallid complexion of someone who stayed inside all day and night. She wondered what kind of woman would be married to him, a middle-aged man who spent his time playing computer games. Wouldn’t that lead to a few arguments, a little frustration on the part of a wife, a wish for something different? It was more likely divorce, not murder, that was in his wife’s mind.
“She was supposed to fix the brakes on my car.” His speech sounded breathy, urgent. “They’re down to nothing. She drives to Blissful for work every day, so one day she takes my car, says she’ll take it to our mechanic there for fixing. I asked her, ‘Did it get fixed?’ She says it’s done; she had to stay late that day too, waiting on the car.” He paused and gave her another one of his knowing looks.
“Okay,” she responded, se
eing that he wanted an acknowledgment. It seemed to her that he must have plenty of time to get his own car fixed but didn’t mention this.
“The next day the brakes are still slipping on me, squeaking too,” he said. “I took the car to a friend who knows about these things and he took a gander. Told me I got robbed. The brakes hadn’t been touched.”
“I'm sorry,” Meredith interrupted. “How does this prove—”
“See, I know the mechanic in Blissful wouldn’t cheat us,” he said. “My family’s known his family for years. I’m telling you, it’s my wife. She never took the car in at all. She’s hoping I’ll go off the road next time I have to drive down the hill.”
Red streaks cracked through the whites of his eyes. He really didn’t appear healthy at all. She wondered if there was something wrong with him and whether she should suggest he see a doctor.
He stared at her intently, like he was waiting for her to say something. She didn’t how to respond. He seemed to have a point, but it wasn’t evidence of attempted murder. She would know, wouldn’t she? There were other reasons why a person would lie about fixing a car. Perhaps the wife was busy with her job or forgot. It didn’t warrant the paranoia this man was suffering.
“I’m not sure…” she started, but was interrupted by a burst of laughter from the two women at the counter. They leaned on the counter, heads close together, clearly settled in for a long afternoon chat. Meredith’s eye caught the clock and she startled. “Oh,” she said, rising quickly. “I have to get to my daughter’s school. I can’t be late.”
“What should I do?” the man pleaded, his face turned up to her.
She shook her head. A nut job, she decided. There probably wasn’t even a wife. Hostility was probably the best choice here. “I’m sorry. I can’t help you.”
She grabbed her things and dashed out of the library, passing by the counter without a glance. Her focus on the man and his problems were replaced with worries of Jamie waiting for her in front of the school. Her five-year-old could hold a grudge as neatly as a moody teenager. Meredith calculated that if she pushed the speed limit down the mountain just a bit, there was a chance she’d get there by the time the bell rang.
****
In the end, she arrived a full minute before the final bell and was able to meet Jamie at the classroom door.
“Hey, Mom.” Her daughter struck a casual pose, hand on one hip and her head cocked to one side. Her face glowed with happiness and she seemed in no hurry to leave. “Want to meet my friends?”
School had been good for both of them, giving each a needed outlet. For Jamie, especially. Her daughter was too smart for her own good, and ready to absorb everything around her.
“This is Karin,” Jamie said as a giggling girl ran up and wrapped her arms around Jamie. “She’s my best friend.”
“Hi, Karin,” Meredith said, sparking another round of giggles.
“Come see my art,” Jamie beckoned, releasing Karin and tugging at Meredith’s hand. “My teacher said it’s very good. Bye, Karin.”
Karin ran off and immediately became absorbed into a circle of children milling near the bus stop. The shrill blare of a whistle sounded as teachers attempted to control the excited students. Inside the building, the kindergarten classroom was still and empty, with walls decorated with students’ drawings. Meredith spent the next fifteen minutes wandering the room while her daughter chattered about her day. She gave Jamie her full attention and expressed enthusiastic appreciation for her five-year-old’s crayon art of bunnies and chicks, colored a rainbow of green, red, and purple.
The elementary school in Blissful, despite its old buildings and weedy exterior, was cheerful enough on the inside. With fewer than a hundred students in the school, teachers knew the names of children in all grades. Supplies were often donated by former students, now grown and doing well in the world, who remembered the nurturing environment of their former school. Jamie called the principal a “princi-pess because she’s beautiful and kind like a princess.” Meredith was curious to meet the woman who so impressed her daughter but she hadn’t yet seen the busy principal around the school.
She didn’t remember her own kindergarten days. There was always a chance she’d never gone to kindergarten at all, what with her nomadic alcoholic mother and an absent father. She desperately wanted her children to have a stable life; one with a home, yard, and a tree swing. She’d fought hard to stay in this community and keep her house. It meant everything to her to give her children a home they would remember as they grew up. As difficult as it was to afford living in this isolated place, it was worth fighting for.
Someday her children would be able to answer the question, “What’s your hometown?” Meredith didn’t have an answer to that one, having relocated from place to place her entire life.
“We have to get Atticus now,” she said gently, and Jamie skipped toward the door. Honey insisted on taking care of seventeen-month-old Atticus on the days Meredith traveled to Twin Lakes. She was grateful, although she still harbored doubts about her friendship with Honey. There were still unanswered questions there. Regardless, it was best to stay on the older woman’s good side; being her friend was far better than being her enemy. One way or another, the woman was determined to have her own way.
“I’m hungry,” Jamie announced. “Can we have cereal for dinner?”
This sounded like a great suggestion. Cereal was her idea of the perfect meal. Nothing to prepare or cook. Just take it out of the cabinet and pour milk on top. It wasn’t the most nutritious meal to serve two growing children, but after working part-time, driving to the library and back, then picking up and tending to both kids, the days mostly disappeared. Soon, it would be bath time with the long process of getting her children tucked into bed. Who could blame her for wanting something easy to serve for dinner?
Meredith smiled. “Sure. Cereal for dinner tonight.”
****
Later, with the kids tucked into bed, she filled the small bathtub with hot water and sank gratefully and completely below the surface. She stayed under as long as she could, feeling the heat seep all the way to her bones, and then emerged gasping, hair dripping. She lay back in the water, her head propped on the rim of the tub, knees poking up from the surface, and let her thoughts drift.
She had lived in Hay City for almost nine months and in that short period of time her life had changed abruptly and completely. Brian swept them away from their life in Oakland—that noisy, crowded, busy, wonderful city—to this tiny place in the middle of nowhere. At first, Meredith hated it wholeheartedly. The house, the weather, the smallness of the town, and what she interpreted as the meanness of the people. The unfamiliar silence at night, its profound darkness, the wicked, forbidding peaks of the Sawtooths range looming over their valley. All of it, in every way, was foreign to her.
Sure, there was Curtis, the sheriff who’d become a friend, maybe even something more. There was also Honey. But both relationships were… complicated. Crusty Connery, the jovial owner of the bar and hardware store where she worked, had been open and friendly from the very start.
The worst was how Brian’s true nature came roaring out after they arrived. Emboldened by the isolation of Hay City, her husband's menacing behaviors became more loathsome every day. She wondered why she failed to recognize the abuse he’d doled out all through their marriage. It crept up slowly until one day she didn't recognize herself anymore: a spineless woman trapped in a malignant marriage. Realizing she’d never really known Brian, she began to hate him. Somehow, being in Hay City put her marriage into sharp focus, and she saw how ugly and dangerous it was. Fleeing wasn’t an option; Brian let her know he’d never let her leave.
Meredith touched her throat as she recalled his hands circling her neck, his breath hot at her ear, when she threatened to take the kids and go. She’d been trapped, unable to leave and terrified to stay. It was only a matter of time before one of them ended up dead.
It was him that ended
up murdered. Because I wasn’t the only one he was mean to.
Her thoughts returned to the man in the library. That was a peculiar, unsettling conversation. He seemed honestly upset and afraid of what his wife might do. Who would confide such a thing to a stranger? He must be a local kook, she decided. There was every possibility he wasn’t even married and, lost in a fantasy game of his own making, concocted the whole crazy story. She sincerely hoped she wouldn’t run into him again on one of her days at the library.
With that, she let her mind relax and enjoy her few minutes free of responsibilities and problems. She turned the hot water on again and refreshed the tub, swirling her hand to make waves eddy around her. Eyes closed, the tension of the day melted away.
****
“I see you've taken on a bunny mama,” Honey remarked.
Meredith regarded the rabbit hutch and smiled at the black and white lop-eared rabbit Jamie convinced her to purchase. The rabbit was cute and gentle, hopping up to the door of the hutch and nudging her hand whenever she came close. The trip out to the shed to feed the critter and clean the cage wasn’t a bother, and Jamie was surprisingly responsible about giving it attention every day. The rabbit hopped after Jamie like a puppy, following her around the yard and scratching in the grass. Lately, the pet took on a roly-poly look and had its nose stuck in the food bowl most of the day.
“Jamie wanted a little girl bunny,” she explained. “She named it Grendel.”
Honey raised an eyebrow and looked sternly at the rabbit. “From the movie where kids kill kids?”
Meredith wrinkled her nose. “She hasn’t seen the movie.”
She walked over to stroke the rabbit’s nose through the wire door of the cage. She was proud of the hutch, which she’d built herself, with odd pieces of lumber, chicken wire, and a little advice from Curtis. “I think a couple of her school friends have though,” she added. “You’d be surprised what they talk about in kindergarten.”
