kiss her anymore. She had kissed her husband for the last time, and she didn’t even know it, so she could cherish it. She gave him fifty years. Mrs. Henderson went to the counter. She looked at herself in the glass of the window. She was worse than ugly now. She was invisible. Her husband had taken her youth, and he hated the snakeskin that was left behind. This was her last year of teaching. At the end of the school year, there would be nothing left. No school. No job. No husband. No children. She would have nothing but these walls. She started to scratch her head. God, it wouldn’t stop itching. Why wouldn’t it stop itching?
Mrs. Henderson stood behind her husband. She waited to see if he would turn around. If he would say anything. But he kept eating as if nothing had happened. He made his little yum yum moan sounds when he chewed. God, that chewing. That awful chewing. Those moans he made when he ate his favorite meal. Didn’t he remember that she had to ask his mother how to cook that meal? Didn’t he remember that a beautiful young woman with gorgeous red hair worked like a God damn slave to perfect that meal that he keeps chewing and chewing like a God damn dog? Did he think that the men he ran around with were going to learn to cook him that meal?
You better turn around. You better ask me how I’m feeling.
Mr. Henderson didn’t turn around. Mrs. Henderson thought so loudly she didn’t understand how he couldn’t hear her.
If you pick up that newspaper, I’m going to make you remember lifting the veil off my face.
Mr. Henderson picked up the newspaper.
Okay, you just picked up the newspaper. Let’s see how the Steelers are doing while your wife cries behind you. Well, guess what? Your wife just stopped crying. Did you notice that I stopped crying? Do you have any idea what is happening behind you? Do you think your little mousy wife is standing there just begging for whatever crumbs you call love? Well, just turn around, and you will see who your mousy wife really is. Turn around, and you will know I am not invisible. I am a BEAUTIFUL FUCKING WOMAN AND I DESERVE YOUR FUCKING RESPECT.
“Honey?” Mrs. Henderson whispered sweetly.
“What now?” her husband groaned.
Then, he turned around, and she plunged the kitchen knife straight through his neck.
Chapter 54
Mary Katherine woke up in a cold sweat. Her fever had broken, but her body didn’t feel good. In fact, it felt worse. She was bloated. Her joints ached. Her breasts were tender. The itch on her arm was driving her crazy. And she felt a little queasy. It was probably the fact that she had stayed in bed all day and slept without eating.
Or maybe it was that dream.
In her dream, it was still three days ago. And none of the horrible things that had happened to her had happened yet. She was babysitting Christopher. She found him in the tree house. She went home. But this time, when the sinful thoughts came to her, she didn’t fantasize about the sheriff. She didn’t put Doug’s awful thing in her mouth. She didn’t wake up in the tree house with no memory of how she got there. She didn’t come home at eight o’clock in the morning to find her parents seething in the living room. And she didn’t have to spend two days taking finals with a 102-degree fever from staying out in a freezing tree house all night. In her dream, none of that happened.
Because the Virgin Mary stopped her.
In her dream, Mary Katherine was back in her room. When the sinful thoughts started, she heard a knocking on the window. She turned to the window and saw a woman floating outside.
“Please let me in, Mary Katherine,” the woman whispered.
“How do you know my name?”
“Because your parents named you after me,” the woman said.
“I thought I was named for the Virgin Mary.”
The woman said nothing. She simply smiled and waited for two plus two to find its way to four. Mary Katherine studied her face. The woman didn’t look like an angel. She didn’t look like all of those paintings and statues that Mary Katherine had seen in churches her whole life. She had no makeup. Her hair wasn’t perfect. She was a simple woman. Poor and dignified. With dirt on her clothes from giving birth in a manger. She