“Wake up, Cathy! Wake up!” Cathy could feel someone shaking her as she lay in bed. “You’ve been moaning and groaning for several minutes. You even woke me up. You must be having a nightmare or something.”
Cathy’s eyes squinted through the light on Ed’s lamp. “Oh yes, I was h…having an awful dream. But it’s over now.” Cathy didn’t want to talk to Ed about her dream. She had just dreamed about the dreadful death of her childhood neighbor so many years ago. In the dream, she had relived the horrid moment, when as a nine year old, she calmly pushed her young friend over the edge of that jagged crevice near their home. Her friend’s demise was something she had never discussed with anyone and she certainly wasn’t going to start now. Over the years, her friends and family thought the self-induced silence was a result of the great inner pain she felt. Little did they know she was harboring a dark, ugly secret and she wanted to keep it that way.
Cathy wondered why she would have such a dream so many years later. Maybe it had something to do with her horrible plans for her husband Ed, she wasn’t sure. Regardless, her reactions to the horrid dream were predictable for the cold, calculating diva. Rather than being appalled by reliving the violent murder of her friend, she smiled and whispered. “If I did it once, I can do it again.”
Ed interrupted her thoughts. “It must have been a doozy. I’ve never seen you flop around in the bed like you did tonight.”
“Well, you know how dreams are, Ed.” She pushed her arms to the ceiling and yawned mightily, anxious to change the subject. “What did you do last night?’
“After Dave and I played golf, I stopped by Sumter Landing to listen to Rocky and the Rollers for a while. Ran into Will at Sumter.”
Cathy was anxious to keep the topic on Ed’s activities, “Oh yeah, what did old Will have to say?”
“He said he thought he saw you at Cody’s with some gentleman having a drink.” Ed’s eyes froze on his wife, awaiting her reply.
“Wasn’t me. Our match went long. We all stopped for a quick drink at City Fire later, but that’s all.”
Ed looked away, “That’s what I thought. He must have seen somebody else.”
“I don’t know Will that well anyway. We’ve only been out with them a couple of times. I can barely remember what he looks like. I’m sure it’s probably the same with him for me.”
Feeling relieved, Ed nodded. “Probably so.”
Cathy tossed the blankets off and climbed out of bed. Her underarms were damp. She wanted to get into the bathroom to end the discussion of her previous night’s activities as quickly as possible. She hurried into the master bathroom and shut the door behind her.
Satisfied with Cathy’s explanation, Ed shouted through the door, “I’m going to throw my shorts on and run over to Sweetbay and get a newspaper. Take your time in there, I’ll shower later. Bye, love.”
Cathy flinched at the ‘bye, love’ comment from her husband. She felt no love or closeness to Ed Roberts. Theirs was a marriage of convenience-a boring, lifeless, marriage of convenience.