Susan picked up the last of the baseball cards from the bedroom floor—knuckleballer Joe Niekro, Paul’s hero—and placed it into the shoebox she’d found in the closet. She set the box on the top shelf and closed the door quietly.
She drew a bubble bath and eased into the steamy water. The orange glow from three tallow candles soothed her. She closed her eyes and spread a cold cloth over her battered left. She sighed deeply. Down the hall, her child slept soundly.
Supper had come and gone with few words. Kelan was distant, and she had no doubt about his preoccupation. If what Mark had told her was true, then Kelan not only knew what she had been through with Earl Eckert, but also knew why. She deserved his silence. Best intentions aside, she had betrayed him.
The day’s events seemed a dream. Even the memory of the attack had begun to dull. She let the water caress her aching body, let it cleanse her of the slime that had touched it. If only everything could just wash away.
Had she done enough? Doubt had not merely crept in; it had leapt into her mind like a charging tiger. For all her effort, all her sacrifice, there was one inescapable fact.
The house was still cold.
What more could she do?
More to the point, what would she do if it got out? What then?
She would have to tell Mark. It was awful, lying to him like this. If by some impossible magic that vile stick returned—if it came to that—she would have to tell him.
She bathed, and as she did, her breast throbbed. She toweled off and cleared the misty mirror with her hand. The scrape below her nipple was wider and deeper than she realized. The wound had not yet begun to heal. The skin had reddened on the perimeter, yet the lesion itself held a sickly lime hue.
It was oozing thick pus. She touched it with a fingertip—gooey—and wiped it clean with a facecloth before applying a disinfectant. She placed a small bandage across the wound, brushed her teeth, and turned in.
Frost covered the windowsill. It seemed to grow before her eyes, clawing its way up the glass perhaps an inch or two. When she got out of bed to check, she could only shake her head at the illusion.
Susan checked on her son. There was no sickness as she entered the room. She kissed Kelan on the forehead and returned to her bed. The last thing she saw before turning off the light was the small book she had placed on her night table.
Her father’s bible.