Big Lies in a Small Town - Diane Chamberlain Page 0,91

and Peter and Anna displayed such a casual and easy camaraderie among them? Had it been misinterpreted? Did the “lover” on the wall of her warehouse imply something more than the fact that she treated Jesse the way she treated everyone else?

All those thoughts ran through her mind in the seconds after Jesse spoke. Finally, she found her voice.

“Nonsense!” she said. “Let’s not let some small-minded fool ruin what we’ve accomplished here.”

They heard the sound of a car on the dirt road and both of them froze, their eyes on the door. Anna’s heart climbed into her throat. In a moment, the door opened and Mr. Arndt and Peter stood in the doorway. A can of paint hung from the postmaster’s hand, while Peter held two brushes, and Anna let out her breath in relief. She’d thought Peter had been a coward, but he’d only gone to get help. She sent him a look of gratitude.

“You two all right?” Mr. Arndt asked her and Jesse. Anna nodded. Jesse seemed frozen, perhaps still stuck in the moment before as he and Anna imagined who might be driving up the road. Mr. Arndt looked at him. “You stay inside, son,” he said. “Me and Peter’ll fix this right up.” He started to head back out the door, but took a moment to look toward Anna again. “This ain’t the real Edenton, Miss Dale,” he said, cocking his head in the direction of the exterior wall with its hateful lettering. “I hope you know that.”

Anna thought of the lovely people she’d met in Edenton. Jesse and Peter. Miss Myrtle and her maid Freda. Pauline and Karl, and so very many others.

“I do know that,” she said.

Jesse helped her mix paint and clean brushes, while Peter and Mr. Arndt undid the damage outside, but there was no denying that they all worked in a wounded silence. Even when the painting outside was finished and Peter joined her and Jesse in the warehouse, they were quiet, and she believed their hearts were still heavy when the three of them finally headed home that night.

Chapter 39

MORGAN

July 11, 2018

Oliver talked me into going to the ER, the last place I wanted to be. Emergency rooms would forever remind me of the night of the accident. Plus, I thought he was overreacting, but once we were sitting in the crowded waiting room where I could finally pry my purplish foot out of my blue Birkenstock, I knew he’d been right. My ankle was positively bulbous by then. We were surrounded by people who looked worse off than I did, though, with their bloody bandages and faces contorted with pain, and I knew we were in for a long wait.

Oliver managed to get an ice pack from a nurse, and I sat with my legs across his lap as he held the pack to my bloated ankle. If I held my foot perfectly still, the pain was bearable, but the second I moved it a millimeter left or right, I had to bite my tongue to keep from whimpering.

“I hope it’s not broken,” I said.

“I think your pain would be even worse,” he said. He leaned over my ankles and sniffed.

“What the hell are you doing?” I asked. I would have pulled my feet away from him if the pain wouldn’t have killed me.

“Don’t smell any booze.” He smiled at me. “I think your monitor was spared.”

I laughed. “You’re crazy,” I said. It was a lucky miracle that nothing had spilled on the monitor during the melee. I had an appointment with Rebecca in the morning and didn’t know how I’d explain myself if the monitor had gone off.

We were quiet for a moment and I realized I was shivering, though I didn’t feel the least bit cold. “I hate this place,” I said.

“I doubt there’s anyone who actually likes it,” he said. “I’ve spent too much time in emergency rooms myself.”

“When did you need the ER?” I’d get him talking about his own experience and skip right over mine.

“I’ve never needed one for myself, but Nathan was another matter,” he said. “Asthma attacks as a little kid, too many times to count. When he was two he ate a bunch of glass beads Stephanie was using to make a necklace. At four, he fell trying to climb over a fence. At six, he was scratched by a neighbor’s cat and the scratch got infected. When he was eight, he broke his arm playing soccer, and when he was