Wayfaring Stranger (Holland Family Saga 1)

“I’ll take care of it,” he said. “Linda Gail, I can’t simply turn my feelings on and off. I feel sick when I can’t see you.”

“I’m sorry if I’ve hurt you,” she said.

“It goes a little deeper than that.”

&nbs

p; “What? Into your glands?” she said. “Goes deeper into what? How many people have to get ruined before you understand there are other people on the planet?”

“I don’t care about them. I care about you,” he replied.

THE PLANE TOUCHED down in Houston at two that afternoon. Linda Gail took a cab to the house and was stunned when she stepped out on the sidewalk. Her flowerbeds had been destroyed, the roses and trumpet vine torn from the trellises, holes chopped in the side lawn, dirt piled on the St. Augustine grass like strings of anthills. A plastic bag that had contained processed cow manure was impaled to the ground by the point of a mattock, the plastic rattling in the wind.

“You want me to carry your bags in, ma’am?” the cabbie asked.

“What?” she said.

“Your bags. You want them inside?”

“Leave them on the porch,” she said.

“What porch you mean?”

“The front porch, the only porch. We don’t have another porch,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, laboring with her two bags to the concrete bib around the single step that led into the living room.

She took her house key from her purse but didn’t insert it in the lock. Her Cadillac was parked in the porte cochere. A curtain rod on the front window was broken, the curtain sagging in the middle.

“Is everything okay here, ma’am?” the cabbie said.

“Yes, thank you,” she said. “Why do you ask?”

“You look a little bothered, ma’am. Is there somebody inside you’re worried about? I’m asking if you want a cop.”

“No. You’re very thoughtful. I’m a little tired. Long plane trip.”

“You’re a movie star. I saw your picture in The Houston Post.”

“That’s nice. I appreciate it,” she said.

“Could I have an autograph? It’s for my daughter.”

“I’d be honored. What’s her name?” she said, taking a piece of stationery and her damaged fountain pen from her purse.

After he was gone, she opened the door and looked at the living room. There was nothing out of place other than the curtain. She walked into the kitchen and the dining room and onto the sun porch. Everything was clean, intact, in its proper place. Then she went into the bedroom. The curtains were closed. When she clicked on the light, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. The ambiance of frilly rayon and puffy quilts and pink and silver and pale blue was as she had left it. Then she saw the marriage photo of her and Hershel in front of the Assemblies of God church in Cottonport, Louisiana. She had been wearing a white suit, a corsage on her shoulder; Hershel had been wearing his uniform, his new chevrons on his sleeve, his ribbons pinned to his chest. They were smiling into the camera, their hands joined. Except Hershel was no longer in the picture. The photo had been scissored in half, and now only Linda Gail remained inside the frame, her hands cut away just behind the knuckles.

The photos in their scrapbook, which had a velvet cover and a glossy plastic heart glued on it, had been altered in the same fashion. Each photo left Linda Gail by herself, sometimes smiling at someone who was no longer there.

She opened the top drawer of her dresser, where she kept a piece of framed ceramic that contained her handprint and Hershel’s side by side, the only souvenir she brought back from their honeymoon in Biloxi. The ceramic had been broken neatly in half, all dust and fine particles and rough edges wiped clean. Her handprint had been refitted in the frame and Hershel’s removed.

As she closed the drawer, she felt a level of loss and abandonment she hadn’t thought possible.

She went back in the living room and sat down in a deep chair and called Roy Wiseheart at home. A woman answered.

“May I speak to Roy, please?” Linda Gail said.

“He’s next door. Who’s calling, please?”