Jamie’s heart beat so fast that she thought it might jump right out of her chest. And her high heels sank into the green grass all the way from the graveside to her seven-year-old van. That hoity-toity bitch back there was probably laughing at her trying to keep her balance. She made sure Gracie and her grandmother had their seat belts fastened and drove out of the cemetery ten miles an hour above the speed limit.
Rita Mendoza crossed her arms over her chest. “I told you that something was not right. No man leaves his wife and daughter and only comes home one week out of every month. I don’t care what his job is—if he is within a hundred miles, he should come home. Now we know that he was staying with his other wives. But that leaves an extra week. Is there a fourth wife in the woodpile?”
“God, I hope not.” Jamie gripped the steering wheel to steady her shaking hands.
“Mama, are they going to put my daddy in the ground? Was he really in that big black box?” Gracie asked from the backseat.
“Yes, baby girl, your daddy is gone and he won’t come home anymore. But we will be fine. You still have your grandmother and me,” Jamie answered through clenched teeth.
“How do we know he was really in there?” Gracie asked.
“I’m sorry that you won’t see him again, sweetheart”—Jamie had to work at keeping her voice calm—“but he was really in the casket.”
It wasn’t a lie. She was sorry that Gracie wouldn’t see her father, but Conrad was lucky that someone had shot him before Jamie figured out why he only came home one week during each month. How dare he turn his back on Gracie and marry that girl! She wasn’t a day over twenty. She might not even be old enough to buy a shot of tequila, and Conrad was past forty. Did Kate have children with him, too?
Gracie nodded seriously. “Can we go to McDonald’s now?”
Rita laid a hand on Jamie’s shoulder. “Let it go. Don’t sugarcoat the truth when she asks, but don’t say too much. He was a good father when he was around.”
“I. Am. So. Angry.” Jamie emphasized each word with a slap of the steering wheel.
“With damn good reason, but it will pass,” Rita said.
“I’m starving.” Gracie folded her arms over her chest. “I hate getting all dressed up. My shoes pinch.”
“I’m hungry, too, baby girl.” Rita smiled. “We’ll get a burger and a milk shake, and we can eat it in the playroom. Afterward you can go down the slide as many times as you want.”
A picture flitted through Jamie’s mind. Conrad had taken her and Gracie to a McDonald’s in a different part of Dallas. He was, or had been, tall, dark haired, blue eyed, handsome, and when he walked into a room or even a McDonald’s all the women in the place eyed him. When he flashed a bright smile, they would stumble around at the privilege of being in his presence—just like she did when they’d met at the teachers’ party that year.
“Mama, can I have a big hamburger instead of the little kids’ meal?” Gracie asked. “I’m really, really hungry.”
“Of course,” Jamie answered. She dreaded going back to her house. Family pictures were everywhere—from a collage on the wall behind the sofa to the credenza in the foyer. One of the two of them on their wedding day was on one nightstand, and on the other side was the three of them in the hospital the day Gracie was born.
Seven years of her life, and it was all a deception. She was mentally throwing pictures at the walls when she reached McDonald’s and pulled into a parking spot. She put her head on the steering wheel and groaned.
“What now? He can’t be killed twice,” Rita said.
“Pictures. Finances. Life. All of it. But I’m too mad to talk about that right now.”
Amanda sat in the passenger seat of the small Chevrolet truck, seat belt around her bulging stomach, crying into tissues that she kept tossing behind her when they were too soggy to use anymore.
“This is a nightmare, Aunt Ellie. I’m going to wake up and Conrad will arrive tomorrow and we’ll go to the cabin for our summer vacation,” Amanda said between sobs. “This cannot be happening. What about our baby and . . . oh, my God, what am I going to do?”
Her aunt Ellie kept one hand on the steering wheel and shook a long, bony finger at her with the other one. “You are going to shut up that carryin’ on and get a hold of yourself, girl. You will do exactly what you’ve been doing the past six months—live in your apartment, help me run the store—and in two months you will have a baby. You were a single mother anyway. He was only home a few days a month.”
“Do you think he was really already married to those other two women?” she finally asked.
“Yes, I do.” Ellie pushed back a strand of salt-and-pepper hair behind her ear. “Why would they attend the funeral and why would they lie? Be thankful you didn’t have to pay for that ceremony. I bet the casket alone cost a fortune.”
“Do you think”—Amanda hesitated, not wanting to even utter the words—“that he slept with them when he wasn’t with me?”
“Most likely,” Aunt Ellie said.