Amanda carefully arranged eight sausage patties in the cast-iron skillet while Jamie did double duty frying bacon and flipping pancakes on the grill. Amanda’s thoughts went to the last time that she and Conrad made breakfast together in that same kitchen. That morning they’d had eggs Benedict, and afterward he’d taken her to the bedroom for one last bout of sex before they’d gone home from the honeymoon.
She’d thought that Conrad was the reward for turning her life around. She’d had a rebellious streak right out of high school. For a year she’d hung out with the wild crowd and frequented the bars around Wichita Falls, mostly country honky-tonks where she could always pick up a cowboy to take home for a one-night stand. Then one morning she awoke to find her cash and credit cards gone, right along with her laptop, her phone, and every piece of jewelry that she owned.
It took a lot of courage to go to Aunt Ellie and tell her what had happened, and it took hours of phone calls to get everything taken care of and reported. She’d lost what dignity she had left when she couldn’t identify the cowboy to the police—when she didn’t know if he was tall or short, had dark hair or light, or if he was young or old. Aunt Ellie put her back in church the following Sunday morning.
“Do you think that we get punished for our past sins?” Amanda whispered.
“Did you repent of them?” Jamie flipped two pancakes onto the platter and poured two more to cook.
“With many tears and lots of humiliation,” Amanda said.
“Then they are forgiven and forgotten,” Jamie answered.
Amanda frowned. “Why do they keep coming back to haunt me?”
“Who is haunting you?” Kate asked as she came back inside. “Gracie says she is going to watch the birds until we bring out breakfast.”
“We were talking about sins and whether we get punished for them,” Jamie said.
“According to the preacher at my church in Fort Worth, if we are truly repentant, then God forgives and forgets,” Kate said. “Why?”
Amanda drained the sausage patties on a paper napkin before shifting them over to the platter with the bacon. “I was wild. I partied too much, drank too much for sure, and had lots of one-night stands before I got myself straightened out. I thought God had forgiven me when I met Conrad. But now I wonder if he wasn’t punishing me with Conrad.”
Kate stole a strip of bacon and blew on it to cool it down before popping it into her mouth. “Then he was punishing all of us. What sin did you commit, Jamie?”
“You first?” Jamie grinned.
“Before or after Conrad?”
“Before,” Amanda said. “But I can’t see you committing a sin.”
Surely the great Kate didn’t ever do anything that resembled sin. Hell’s bells! She hadn’t even divorced Conrad when he told her that he was cheating with other women.
“I can’t see you taking home one-night stands, Amanda.” Jamie giggled.
“Well, I did, and the last one sure opened my eyes.” She told them about what had happened and how embarrassed she’d been. “Aunt Ellie made me start going to church with her again, and I finally figured out I was punishing my mother for abandoning me by acting out like that.”
“You have to show ID to buy a beer now. I can’t imagine how young you must have looked then,” Kate said.
“I had a fake one from the time I was sixteen, like every other kid in school.” Amanda flipped the sausage over. “But you were about to tell us what you did that you’d feel like Conrad was punishment.”
“I was too busy for one-night stands, but I did have a couple of relationships in college. One with a married professor,” Kate said.
“No!” Jamie almost dropped the pancakes she was moving from griddle to platter. “I can’t even imagine it. Was he old and bald headed?”
“You are joking, right?” Amanda whispered.
Kate held up two fingers and then crossed her heart. “It’s the truth. He was about thirty. It was his first year as a professor, and I was twenty-one. When I found out that Conrad had two more wives, I figured it was my comeuppance.”
“But then what?” Amanda asked.
“I truly repented and said I’d never do that again. Still, I wonder about it.” Kate picked up a plate and headed toward the deck with it. “And you, Jamie?”
“I was very, very good at five-finger discounts,” Jamie whispered on the way outside.
“What made you stop?” Kate asked.
“Mama Rita. She went through my bedroom one day when I was at school. It was my senior year, and I had enough scholarships and grant money to go to college. And there were enough pretty things in my closet and my jewelry box that no one would ever know I was a poor girl from inner-city Dallas.”
“And?” Amanda asked.
“She put every single thing I’d stolen into a big black garbage bag and put it in the charity donation box down on the corner. She said there was no way that I could remember where it came from to take it back. And then I got the lecture of a lifetime.”
“Which was?” Kate asked.
“If I got caught, all my college money would be revoked and I’d be lucky to get a waitress job. Then she made me go to confession and tell the truth, and believe me, what I had to do was not easy. For the whole summer, I had to clean the church every Saturday for penance.”
“So you are Catholic?” Amanda said.
“Mama Rita is. I went with her, but after Gracie was born I didn’t always go to church with her. Sometimes I went to a Methodist church down the block from me. And when I found out that Conrad was a thief of sorts, I wondered if it was my punishment for past sins.”
“Mama, look!” Gracie yelled from the railing. “There’s a bunch of baby ducks out there on the lake.”
Amanda could hardly believe what they’d said. There’s bad things in people who are basically good and good things in people who are bad. When my baby is born, I’ll just have to search for the good memories of his father to tell him about.
When everyone had left that morning, Kate poured a cup of coffee, carried it out to the deck, and called her mother. “Do you have a few minutes to talk?” she asked when her mother answered.
“I don’t like working without you here.” Teresa’s tone was still grouchy. “I would have never made the suggestion that you take time off if . . .” She stopped.
“If you thought I’d really stay this long, right?” Kate finished the sentence for her. “You figured I’d come up here and get bored out of my mind and be back in the office in a week at the most,” Kate said.
“Yes, I did,” Teresa said curtly.
“I like it here.” Yesterday’s church hymn played through her mind as she shut her eyes tightly for courage. “I want to take a year’s sabbatical.”
“Don’t you joke with me this morning,” Teresa said.
“I’m serious as a heart attack. I want a year off,” Kate said.
She didn’t only want it. She needed it.