"Now what?"
"I think we ought to break in," Missy said.
"Why?"
"Because Lenore ought to be at work and Weshelle ought to be at Aunt Debbie's since Chandra went to Frankfurt this week. I don't know what happened, but Weshelle is here. I can hear her crying. And crying. And crying. If she was sick and Lenore stayed home with her today, if Lenore was here, if she was okay at least, she wouldn't let that happen."
Ron came up the walk. "Do we actually have to force our way in, or does she hide a key somewhere?"
"She does, now that you remind me. Under the kindling pile. There's a fake rock. It's hollow."
"He didn't kick me," Lenore said. "He's strong. If he had kicked me, I would probably be dead."
"Then," Ron asked, "what are these marks?"
"He hit me with my boots. My winter boots. That's what he used the last time, too. I wish I hadn't put them back on, that night when Clara and Trent Dorrman and Brother Green were here. I wish I hadn't gone into the bedroom still wearing them. I wish that I had left those heavy winter boots right there in the hall, by the door. I wish that they hadn't been so handy."
"What night?" Missy said, as she came in carrying Weshelle. "I got her changed, gave her a sippy cup of milk and now she's chewing on toast. So she's happier."
"Back in February."
"Lenore, what happened in February? I know that Bryant was recruiting for Dumais, and Clara said, when she sent us over here just now, that she and Lola and the other women at the court had gotten a protective order for you, but what else is going on here?"
"I'm too ashamed. I'm too ashamed to tell anybody else. Too many people know already what he did."
"This time, in another half hour, you would have been too dead to tell anybody else." Ron thought it was only reasonable to point this out. "It might have gone faster if he had kicked you, but he was definitely making progress when we turned up."
"I didn't do anything," Lenore moaned. "I didn't do anything to make him so mad."
Missy looked at Ron. "What next? We can't leave Lenore alone with Weshelle and we can't stay here. At least, both of us can't. One of us has to go back and tell Chief Richards and Don Francisco and all those that Bryant was here and what he did and that he ran."
"I'll go, but they'll need you too, if we're going to make sense out of this. Is there anyone else you can call to help?"
Missy stood there, holding Weshelle and thinking. Uncle Wes was at a meeting somewhere and Clara was busy with the police at Consular Affairs and anyway, if Uncle Wes saw Lenore right now . . . That was not a good thing to think about.
"I'm going to call the Reverend Mary Ellen. I don't ever go to church any more, but Lenore does. That's the best idea, I think. She'll come. And the hospital. Some medical type has to take a look at Lenore. We'll need an ambulance anyway, to move her. She sure can't go anywhere by herself. You go now. After other people get here, I'll come after you. Mary Ellen can take care of things here and send the police to catch up with us later to tell them what was going on."
"No," Lenore said. "I'm not going to cry for a love gone wrong, Mary Ellen. There wasn't any love between Bryant and me, from start to finish. Neither of us ever thought so."
She looked up. "And I'm not going to cry for anything else, either. I didn't try to fool Bryant. I am angry, though. I've thought about it, and what I'm feeling is angry. Miserable, degraded, but angry, too. When we married, I was willing to give him an honorable effort to make the best of things in a world that isn't perfect. He wasn't willing to give that much back."
Mary Ellen looked down. None of them had tried to lift Lenore off the floor. All of them thought that had better wait for the EMTs.
"I thought he was, at first. If I hadn't thought so, I wouldn't have agreed to marry him. He wasn't, but I'm not going to cry about that. I'm not going to cry. Not ever."
"Lenore," Mary Ellen asked. "If the EMTs say that you don't have to go to the hospital, is there anyone that I can get to come over and stay with you after I leave? Someone you are willing to have? The kind of friend who would come and ask no questions?"
Lenore smiled for the first time since Bryant had come back to the house that morning. "The only person I can think of I would want is Caroline Jones. Dorrman. Which isn't going to work, considering what you just told me."
Mary Ellen smiled too. About nine o'clock in the morning, Simon's niece Caroline had phoned the parsonage to say that the baby was on its way.