“Yes. If it’s ready.”
Rhetta filled a thick brown mug and set it on the table along with a spoon and a half gallon of milk. “Sugar’s there if you take it.”
Christy-Lynn took a seat, pouring a splash of milk into her mug as she watched Rhetta crack a single egg into a bowl and give it a quick scramble before pouring it into the pan. Her hands trembled as she worked, but she moved with the ease of a woman who had prepared her share of breakfasts. Moments later, she turned the egg out onto a plate, added two slices of bacon, and disappeared into the living room with Iris’s breakfast.
She was a bit winded when she returned, her lips parted and grayish. “I don’t like for her to eat in front of the television,” she said, filling a mug for herself and joining Christy-Lynn at the table. “But this way, we’ll have the kitchen to ourselves.”
“Thank you.”
“Well, it’s not the kind of talk a child should hear, is it?”
“No, I suppose not.”
Rhetta splashed some milk into her coffee, then dropped in a heaping spoonful of sugar. “So,” she said, still stirring. “Here we are again.”
“Yes. Here we are. A friend of mine thinks I’m crazy for coming here. He doesn’t understand why I need to know all the gritty details.”
“No, a man wouldn’t. But I do. You need to make sense of it.”
Christy-Lynn nodded, relieved to at last be understood. “Yes.”
Rhetta’s eyes slid away, watery blue and suddenly full of memory. “I was married once, a million years ago. Men haven’t changed all that much since my time. Women either. We still try to make everything our fault.”
“I guess what I really need to know is . . . why.”
“Good luck figuring that out.”
“Now you sound like Wade.”
“Your friend?”
“Yes. He thinks I’m a glutton for punishment, and maybe I am. It’s certainly a strange thing to be confronted with—the child of your husband’s mistress.”
“I didn’t mean for you to find out about Iris. That was an accident. She’s been through enough without having to figure out who you are. She doesn’t understand where her mama’s gone, not that her mama was around all that much.”
“Where was she?”
Rhetta sighed, a hoarse, tired rasp. “Who knows. With him, somewhere. I told you Honey had her heart set on being an actress. Where she came up with that idea, I’ll never know, but that was her dream. She took a few acting classes in high school and at the community college, even did a commercial for a furniture store here in town. She wasn’t very good, but she was pretty, and I guess she thought that was enough because off she went to find him.” Rhetta rose and shuffled to the counter, returning with the coffeepot to top off their mugs. “Groupies, they used to call them in my day, but that was for singers and movie stars. I didn’t know writers had them too.”
For an instant, Christy-Lynn was transported back to the day she bumped into Stephen in the hall at Lloyd and Griffin. If possible, he had been even better-looking than the author photo on the back of his novels, and with his polished smile and easy patter, he had positively oozed charm. It wasn’t hard to imagine a girl like Honey, ambitious, starry-eyed, and desperate for a ticket out of Riddlesville, succumbing to that combination—as she herself had.
“My husband had a way of collecting people,” she said finally. “Like a magnet. I used to think it was unconscious. Now I realize he knew exactly what he was doing. Funny what you can see in the rearview mirror.”
Rhetta let out another sigh. “I thought she’d stop seeing him when she realized he didn’t actually have much say about who got to be in the movies, but she didn’t. Maybe it was the money. He bought her nice things, took her nice places. It turned her head. I guess it would any girl’s. At least any girl from Riddlesville. She got all that with Stephen, along with a nice car and a fancy apartment somewhere. Pretty soon, she didn’t even look like Honey—with those store-bought boobs and all the designer clothes. She’d disappear for a while then come back just long enough to rub her new life in everyone’s face. Especially the old crowd down at the IGA where she used to cashier. She’d spend a little time with Iris, but mostly it was about showing off. And then off she’d go again.”
Christy-Lynn was still digesting the fact that Stephen had set his mistress up in an apartment when she remembered the autodrafts she had discovered on his bank statements. Star Properties LTD. Not a publicity firm then; a property management company. And what about the $4,000 transfers each month?
“Was my husband paying child support?”
She had put the question a bit bluntly, and for a moment, Rhetta seemed genuinely surprised. “I don’t know if you’d call it that. At least I never did. It was more like an allowance. He would put money in Honey’s account every month. Quite a lot of money. It made me ashamed that she took it—there are names for women who take money from men—but then Iris came along, and I couldn’t afford to be all high-and-mighty. Children need things. Lots of things. And a government check only goes so far.”
Christy-Lynn felt a sharp stab of remorse. She’d never stopped to consider that Stephen’s death might spell disaster for Iris and her great-grandmother. “Is she . . . are you all right? Money wise, I mean?”
Rhetta stepped away, sliding the pot back onto the burner. “We’ll manage,” she said firmly. “We’ll have to.”
“You mentioned a grandson.”
“Ray,” she said, suddenly looking very tired. “He never thought much of Honey. Very pious, my Ray. Reverend of the Living Water Tabernacle. His wife, Ellen, plays the organ on Sundays. And oh, wasn’t she green with envy when Honey started popping up in church with all her fancy clothes. And Honey loved every minute. I know that sounds petty. And it is. I’m not making excuses for the girl. What she did was wrong, but I’m guessing you have no idea what it’s like to grow up in a town like this, to see how the rest of the world lives and know there’s no chance you’ll ever have that kind of life—or much of any life, really, unless you count raising a passel of kids in a double-wide. But Honey knew it. So did her mother. Which is why I suppose they both got out the first chance they got.”
For one terrible instant, Christy-Lynn flashed back to the night she had been ushered into a hospital room to find her mother lying there with her face sewn up, promising that when she got out of jail things would go back to the way they were. In her whole life, she’d never been more afraid than the night her mother made that promise. Yes, she did have an idea what it was like. Much more than an idea. In that, at least, she and Honey had had something in common.
Rhetta was back in her chair now, stirring sugar into her freshened mug, her eyes clouded and far away. Christy-Lynn watched her for what felt like a long time, trying to figure out the best way to frame her next question.
“Did they ever talk about getting married?” she said finally, because there was no best way.
“You mean was Stephen planning to ask you for a divorce?”
Christy-Lynn looked down at her hands, wrapped a little too tightly around her mug. “Yes.”
“Not that I ever heard. And I’m not sure Honey really cared about a ring. I think she liked having all the benefits of being married to a rich man without any of the responsibility. That’s why Iris coming along knocked her for such a loop.”
Christy-Lynn gnawed at her lip, weighing another awkward question. “You don’t think she got pregnant so Stephen would marry her?”
Rhetta’s eyes widened. “You mean to trap him? Good grief, no. It was Honey who ended up getting trapped with that baby. Stupid girl. She talked about, you know . . . not having it. It was Stephen who talked her out of that.”