Marry in Haste

by Susan Van Kirk

  My heart feels such a heavy burden, but my intellect says I am making the correct decision. My parents will be happy, Aunt Maud will be proud, and I will have a prominent position in the town of Endurance. That last thought worries me, but I will learn to be in charge of his household and have children of social standing, whose lives will lack for nothing. My heart does not quicken when I see Judge Lockwood, but my head tells me he is my future.

  Grace closed the journal and sighed. She wanted to say, “Stop! Don’t marry the judge.” But I have the advantage of knowing what fate has in store for her. Why do we so often think with our heads instead of our hearts when it comes to love? I suppose back then it was important for a woman to marry a man of substance. A woman’s life was so circumscribed by the man to whom she was married.

  Grace decided she would go over to Emily Folger’s tomorrow and see how she was doing. Each time she saw Emily, her former student seemed stronger and better able to handle things. But she still had the murder charge hanging over her head. Well, we’ll see about that. I almost have TJ won over to the Grace Kimball Cause of the Month.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The next afternoon, Grace sat at the Folger kitchen table and looked over Emily’s shoulder at the wan, winter sunlight. Then Emily said, “Only in a small town like Endurance would the lead detective, who is trying to prove you’re a murderer, deliver you a slice of apple pie and check your ankle monitor at the same time.” She smiled, and Grace thought it was the first genuine smile she’d seen on Emily’s face . . . well, except for the day her children came home to stay. “Thank you, Ms.—Grace—for the apple pie. It was delicious,” said Emily.

  Grace, too, smiled at the thought. “I’m working on TJ. Don’t worry. She’s coming around.”

  “It seems strange to think TJ and I were in high school together, and here we are now, on opposite sides of a strange situation. What if I could have seen the future back then? Would I be in this spot I’m in now? Could I have changed it with a single decision?” She shook her head. “Each night I go to bed and think maybe tomorrow this nightmare will end. But it doesn’t.”

  Grace reached across the table and put her hand on Emily’s. “I have faith in TJ. She’ll get to the bottom of this.” For a few seconds, a comfortable silence settled on the room.

  “What makes you think I’m innocent in all this?” Emily said.

  “I know you, Emily Petersen. This—all this—isn’t you.” Grace studied her former student and was gratified to see the bruises had healed, and her face looked less drawn. Her eyes now had light grayish circles beneath them instead of dark, black rings from sleepless nights. Her hair was clean and pulled back with a clip, and her cheeks weren’t quite as pale as they had been. She seemed a little calmer, a little more in control, and a little less vague. “I would have come over sooner, but TJ left for Chicago, I had some columns to finish for the newspaper, and I got Eliot Ness—her cat. You won’t believe what Lettie has taught Eliot the cat to do. When he hears ‘Stayin’ Alive,’ the song from the movie Saturday Night Fever—you know, John Travolta strutting down the street—Eliot goes crazy, and chases his tail in circles. I have a feeling when TJ finds out, Lettie will be in a lot of trouble. Jeff thought it was hysterical, and I have to agree that I laughed so hard I had a difficult time stopping.”

  Her voice trailed off as she thought of her last conversation with Jeff at the office. He still acted different, more distant, withdrawn. What was going on there? Emily’s voice jarred her wandering thoughts back to the present.

  “I’m starting to remember more from that night. Some of it is . . . good, well, good because I remember. Some of it comes in strange flashbacks and nightmares. But I take my sleeping pill, and it helps. When I look in the mirror now, I don’t see a woman with eyes resembling dark holes in her head.”

  “How are you doing with the psychiatrist?”

  “Well, I think. Much of her practice consists of issues like domestic violence, and she gave me a notebook so I can write down random thoughts. I have to re-frame the way I look at the past.” She sat down for a moment, her hands in her lap. “I can’t, for example, blame myself for Conrad’s behavior. I couldn’t control what he did. All I could do was react to it, and I tried to protect the children and me. It was a matter of reading him right and trying to survive day to day. I haven’t quite realized down here”—she pointed to her stomach—“that it wasn’t my fault . . . what he did.”

  “You certainly look much better to me, more like the Emily I used to know.”

  “Thank you, Grace. I’m so glad you called and came over. I still find so many decisions hard to make. I can’t always trust my instinct. These last few years, I’ve been so isolated I’ve forgotten what it’s like to talk with people. And, frankly, right now I don’t even know what people are thinking. It still isn’t easy. How can I face people? Sitting here like this, just the two of us, works better for me than talking to more than one person at a time.”

  Grace stood up, brought the coffee carafe over to the table, and poured more in each of their cups. “A step at a time. Wait till you feel more up to it. How are you feeling these days, physically?”

  Emily sighed. “I still have flashbacks and nightmares. Some days I have headaches, and I cry easily. But now I take some medications for anxiety and depression, and I think they help. It’s strange. I find myself anxious for no reason. Yesterday I was at the grocery store and this redheaded lady looked at me in the strangest way. I don’t think I was imagining it.” She paused. “Well, maybe I did imagine it. Sometimes my anxiety goes overboard, although I don’t notice it as much when the children are home. My mind is more occupied.”

  Grace glanced up at the drawings and colored papers stuck on the refrigerator with magnets. “It looks like Caitlin and Conrad have made pictures to cheer you up.”

  Emily smiled and said, “They are the best—the best thing that ever happened to me. But they’re so young. We just celebrated Conrad’s eleventh birthday, and already his father was grooming him to become a bank president. At age eleven? He’s just a child. It’s hard on them to comprehend their father’s absence. They aren’t old enough to absorb or understand, and I certainly hope no one else says anything to them. I have their teachers on alert. I may take them to a pediatric therapist soon.”

  Grace took a sip of her coffee and paused before she spoke. “I can empathize. My three children were so young when their father died of a heart attack. And I wasn’t much help at the time. It seemed like I couldn’t make any decisions, like I was in a fog.”

  “Oh, me too. Me too. I feel better about it, though. The fog isn’t there as often as it used to be—in my head, that is.”

  “You know, it’s easy to look back and say, ‘If only I’d done this or that, things would be different,’ ” said Grace, looking out the window and thinking of her own regrets.

  “I should have, somehow, seen the signs. I think back to when we first dated. He went out of his way to try to please me and show me what a good life we could have together.” Emily smiled at some memory. “Of course, we didn’t have a long engagement. I simply thought he was the one. It’s weird. Sometimes, the very aspects he loved about me to begin with are the parts he tried to destroy as our marriage went on—my independence, my social life with my friends, or some of the talents I had.” She looked at a family photo on the wall near the door to the living room. “Even my relationship with my parents was something he longed for with his own, but then he kept me away from mine.

  “And, after we were married, my two miscarriages didn’t help. When I got pregnant again, he figured it wouldn’t take, but then Conrad was born and he was happy for a while. Of course, I can see that now because I’ve been talking to the psychiatrist, and I’m only beginning to realize that now, if I make a decision, I can expect no reprisals. He isn’t here anymore to hurt me. It’s certainly been difficult—the decision-making. What to eat or what to wear—at first, those were really tall mountain
s. But it is getting easier.” Grace watched as Emily nervously wrung her hands. “I have to take it one day at a time. Re-frame thoughts in the positive. Remind myself of my blessings.”

  Grace thought carefully about what she wanted to ask next. Emily was opening up considerably, and she didn’t want to push too hard. Then, taking a deep breath, Grace asked her a question quietly. “Emily, what are you able to remember about that night when Conrad was killed?” She hoped her question didn’t tread down a path filled with rocks and ground glass.

  Emily bit her lip for a minute and looked past Grace’s shoulder. Then her eyes came down again and focused on her old mentor. “I do remember some things.” She dropped her gaze down to her lap. “I don’t know how much you know about that night. It comes back to me in flashbacks, and I’m only starting to make sense of it in chronological order. I know when I went to bed the night of his death I took a sedative. I never liked to do that, but I had a feeling something bad was going to happen.”

  “Really? Why?”

  “Oh, signs. Conrad’s mood. The children were gone, and he had been drinking way too much, even before I went to bed. Not good. And he had not been himself that week. I think something was going on at the bank. Whatever it was, it made him anxious. I saw him speak in quiet tones with Will in the kitchen on more than one occasion that night. He was angry and impatient in a very controlled way. And he had been coming home from work increasingly late, tense, and short-tempered. But I don’t know why. I just know I could always read his behavior and his face. I was a master at reading his moods.”

  “Do you remember your 9-1-1 call?”

  She hesitated. “Yes, although it’s foggy since I had taken my sedative, and it always made me groggy in the morning.” She paused, and for a few seconds she considered what she would say next. She bit her lip again, a nervous habit which had stayed with her. Then she repeated, “I don’t know how much you know about that night.” She paused, and Grace waited, holding back any thoughts. Then Emily looked up with hooded eyes and said, “He raped me.”

  There, Grace thought. It was out.

  “I mean, I know we were married and all, but what he did was not gentle or loving. I think it’s when I got the bruises on my arms. And he—he slapped me several times across the face. I remember that. I thought I was going to stop breathing, but it had happened so many times I had learned to go along with it until he stopped. This time I think I must have fought back. My lawyer said Conrad’s DNA was under my fingernails when I went to the emergency room.”

  “Oh, Emily. I am so sorry. How awful. No one deserves that. I can’t imagine how you could deal with it for so long.”

  Emily looked at Grace with sad eyes, their tears brimming over her lower lids. “Me either. But you see, after he’d do it, it was as if some horrible fury had been spent. The next day he would be the loving Conrad I used to know, the one who sent me roses and was kind and wanted me to forgive him. Trouble was, I never knew which Conrad would show up each day.”

  Grace looked at her empty coffee cup, decided against more caffeine, and asked, “How are the children really doing?”

  Emily wiped the tears from her eyes with a tissue from her pocket. “See,” she said, smiling. “I still cry for no reason.” Then she half-smiled at Grace and said, “They’re great. Aside from not understanding where their father is, they’re relieved. The house is quiet, and I’m home when they get here from school. I’m so thankful they weren’t here that horrible night. Caitlyn asked me about the ankle monitor, and I explained I had to wear it so the police would be able to contact me about their father’s death. So far, their teachers haven’t reported any hecklers or bullies at school, so it’s good, I think.”

  “Yes. Yes, it is.” Suddenly Grace’s phone played “If I Had a Hammer.” “Oh, hang on. I’d better take this. It’s my kitchen contractor.” She hit the accept button and listened to an excited Del relay the message. “What? You’re at the ER? Is she okay?” Then she listened for a minute and replied, “All right. Hang tight. I’ll be there right away. Thanks, Del.”

  “Trouble?”

  Grace stood up and dropped her phone in her purse by her chair. “That was my contractor, and my sister-in-law, Lettie, fell off a ladder and may have broken or sprained her ankle. He’s with her at the ER, and I have to get over there now.”

  Emily was on her feet, and she moved quickly and held out Grace’s coat and scarf. “Gosh, I’m so sorry, Grace. If I can do anything to help you, just ask. Please.”

  Grace smiled and gave Emily a hug. “I’ll come see you again. You just get better. It’s all I need.”

  Grace took off her coat and looked around Lettie’s hospital room. Del sat by the bed, and a nurse was just leaving, having deposited a syringe in the medical waste bin.

  “How did you manage to fall off a ladder? Why were you on a ladder in the first place, Lettie?” Grace asked in a scolding tone that softened as she saw her disabled sister-in-law hooked up to an IV and lying swathed in bed sheets and blankets.

  “She was being cussed stubborn, as always,” said Del Novak. “She decided to wash the curtains while I had everything torn up, so that’s why she was up on the ladder. And, you know how it says on ladders that you shouldn’t go above a particular step?”

  Grace gave her sister-in-law a skeptical look. “I already understand, Del. You don’t need to explain. I’ve seen decades of this behavior.”

  Del leaned over the bed and patted Lettie’s hand. “Well, I should go now that your sister-in-law is here. You get better now, Lettie.” He turned to leave and added, “Oh, and Ms. Kimball. The nurse gave her some pain meds so she’s kind of loopy.”

  Grace rolled her eyes and laughed. “Loopy?” She thought about it for a moment and added, “This should be interesting.”

  “Well, okay. I think I’ll call it a day and head home. I should rest a little.”

  “Thanks, Del, for bringing her in and staying with her. That was very kind of you.”

  “No problem, Ms. Kimball.” He leaned over and whispered, “I wouldn’t want her to hear this, but I like her.”

  Grace was still chuckling as he walked out the door. Then she turned to the patient. “Well, Lettisha Kimball. What do you have to say for yourself, climbing up on ladders at your age, and disobeying safety instructions?” She tried to make her voice sound stern.

  Lettie’s tiny head peeked out from under an enormous sea of white bed sheets and blankets. Grace was startled. She couldn’t figure out why Lettie had a bandage on her head when she hurt her ankle. “Oh, Gracie, isn’t he wonderful? It was just like the scene from Gone with the Wind where Rhett carries Scarlett up a huge flight of stairs. You watch his broad back and massive shoulders strain against his coat, you see him climb the stairs three at a time with no effort, and you know he will take her to his bed and have his way with her.” She paused to take a breath, and Grace could swear she saw stars twinkle in Lettie’s eyes. Then the stars changed to confusion. “But, of course, with Del, there was more panting on the soundtrack, and more popping of his knees and creaky sounds in his joints as he tried to pick me up off the floor. His face got so red I thought he might have a heart attack, and I’d have to drag myself across the floor and call 9-1-1 for an ambulance for him.”

  Grace tried hard to keep her composure at the heroic picture of Lettie dragging herself through the sawdust, but her attempt was futile, and she burst into laughter so hard that tears came to her eyes. Lettie seemed totally oblivious and rattled on in her drug-induced delirium.

  “He managed to stagger to the car and drop me in the back seat, and I didn’t even feel the pain from the tool box on the car seat when I hit my head on it. He had such a concerned look in his eyes.” She stopped a moment and reconsidered. “Well, maybe the look was confusion over where he put his car keys. Of course, he had to mop his forehead about that time, and he was sweating considerably, even though it was frigid outside.” She sighed. “Oh, what a knight in shining armor!”<
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  By now Grace had stopped laughing, and she noted the rapturous look on Lettie’s face. “This is the same Del Novak you tried to kill with your cast-iron skillet?”

  Lettie’s eyes had closed, her last words fading out into something about Mildred at the bakery. She began to snore in a loud, even solo. Grace watched her for a few seconds and then leaned over and planted a soft kiss on her forehead. She turned and sat down, thinking she’d stay for a little while, talk with the next nurse who came in, and then go to Lettie’s and pick up some things her sister-in-law might need. Lettie’s snores lent a peaceful backdrop to Grace’s vigil, and Grace couldn’t stop smiling when she remembered Lettie’s comic description of Del’s rescue.

  It was late afternoon when Grace pulled into Sweetbriar Court. It had become no warmer as the day went on, and the gray and sullen sky cast a pall over everything. But the car was toasty warm, heat blasting out of the vents, so she sat in the driveway for a few minutes, thinking about Emily Folger. She’d come quite a long way from the woman Grace had seen in the hospital; obviously, she had her psychiatrist to thank for that. But Grace still felt her former student had a fragile core, a lack of self-confidence born from years of being told she was stupid. At this moment Grace really hated Conrad Folger. Why did people like Folger exist? What joy did they get out of destroying women they supposedly loved? Yes, Emily was doing better, but she would need to continue to work hard on rebuilding the person she used to be—the self-confident, smart woman who was comfortable in her own skin.

  Going home again was never easy, as author Thomas Wolfe had discovered, nor was it easy to go back to the person you used to be. Too many things had happened to Emily. Actually, maybe it wasn’t even possible—to go back, that is. I should see her more, thought Grace. But now with Lettie coming home tomorrow, I’ll be tied up considerably with her care. She sighed and pulled into the garage, turning off the engine. She hadn’t collected the newspaper off the porch that morning, so she walked around to the front of the house, going down a narrow, plowed path.