When I Last Saw You - Bette Lee Crosby Page 0,65

said she was in the mood for dessert. “Pudding maybe or one of those little petit four things.”

Martin claimed no policeman would arrest Eliza. Thinking back on the pennyroyal incident, he said, “She’s too clever. She makes you think sugar wouldn’t melt in her mouth, but the truth is she’s hell bent on having her way.”

Again, Martha Mae yawned. “Then find another way to make her give the money back.”

That night Martha Mae did not return to the apartment with Martin. She said she was weary of listening to him complain about Eliza.

“Are you a man or mouse?” she asked. “If somebody steals something of yours, it’s up to you to get it back.”

Having Martha Mae talk to him in such a way made Martin angrier. Up until now he’d felt a tad guilty about not sending Eliza money, but no more. If she wanted trouble, then she would get it. He knew where she was, and he knew where she kept the money.

As the moon climbed higher in the sky and began to fade, he stood at the window thinking of what he was going to do. In between the bursts of anger, he found moments when he could remember how they’d once loved one another. When those thoughts came he forced them away, reminding himself that she’d come like a thief in the night and taken money that rightfully belonged to him. She could have asked for what she needed, but she didn’t. Instead she’d waltzed in and taken it all. Martha Mae was right. He needed to do something about it.

It was nearly 5 am when Martin reached the point where he could no longer keep his eyes open. He threw himself across the bed, fell into a deep sleep, and didn’t wake until after 10.

He arrived on the jobsite a full three hours after they’d started, bleary-eyed and half-awake. Before an hour had gone by, he made three different blunders. When he dropped a terminal connector and had to climb down the ladder to retrieve it, Charlie Crane, the job foreman, hollered, “Get your head out of your ass, Hobbs, and watch what you’re doing!”

Fifteen minutes later, Martin crossed wires and blew out the line they were working on; that was when Charlie came over with blood in his eyes.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” he yelled, sticking his nose in Martin’s face.

“Sorry,” Martin mumbled. “I didn’t sleep so good last night. I got a problem with—”

“Your problems are not my problems. You’re done for the day. Go home, and don’t come back until you’re ready to stop screwing around and do some work.”

This was the first time Martin had been called out in front of his crew, and it made him feel like a piece of crap. Worse than a piece of crap. To be sent home like a misbehaving child added insult to injury. He narrowed his eyes, glared at the foreman, then stomped off hollering he didn’t know whether he’d bother coming back.

“Suit yourself,” Charlie shouted.

Tired as he was, when Martin left the jobsite he didn’t go home. Instead, he headed over to the train station and bought a round-trip ticket to Coal Creek.

He had to wait the better part of an hour, but once the 12:10 pulled in he climbed aboard and before the train had left the station was asleep. Nodded off as he was, he missed his stop and had to get off at Becker’s Hollow. Still too weary to make the five-mile hike on foot, he paid a wagon driver a dollar to take him home.

——————

THROUGHOUT THE SUMMER, ELIZA HAD half-expected Martin to show up looking for his money. On a good day she could rationalize he had no reason to suspect her, but on a bad day she’d remember how he could fly into a rage over something of little significance. At those times, the fear in her chest would grow heavy as a stone.

In the early months she’d been diligent about bolting the door at night, keeping the children close at hand, and making certain the shotgun was always loaded. After the leaves began to turn and school reopened, she grew comfortable with the thought that her fears were unfounded. On a Friday afternoon, before Oliver, Ben Roland, and Dewey had returned from school, she heard a wagon rumble up the road but paid it no mind and continued changing Virgil’s diaper.

Moments later she heard the sound of boots thundering across the front porch, and her

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