The Book of CarolSue Read online

  On the plane taking her sister home with her, though, with CarolSue next to her like a wilted lily (at first she’d thought dying lily, and then, horrified, changed the word in her mind), the ramifications of CarolSue moving in started to become real. She and CarolSue had always told each other everything. But some months ago, Louisa had started omitting certain details. Well, maybe they were more than details. Possibly she hadn’t told her something big.

  She closed her eyes, thinking she might be able to sleep, but an argument started in her head. What are you going to do now? You should have told her. It reminded her of Marvelle, her tuxedo cat, who often swished her tail disdainfully at Louisa’s best Plans.

  Louisa bristled back, her defense rising over the white noise of the engines: I was going to tell her. At the right time. How was I supposed to know Charlie was going to drop dead?

  But Louisa of all people did know how people disappeared, here to track mud on your clean floor and laugh when you complained about missing chocolate chip cookies one instant, dead the next, and you don’t get two weeks’ notice in the mail that it’s going to happen.

  She tapped the shoulder of the bald man with things in his ears in the aisle seat and gestured that she needed to get out. (Possibly CarolSue had been right about laying off the coffee before the flight, but Louisa was not about to say so.) At home, Marvelle would be waiting for them. She’d take in what was going on, jump off the back of the chair in disgust, and saunter to the back door, wanting to be let out. Marvelle thought she knew everything. Well, Louisa had handled fifth-grade boys, who were a lot sneakier than field mice, and she would damn well make it work with CarolSue there.

  The man scarcely moved his knees a quarter inch to let Louisa out. It wasn’t exactly pretty, but she made it, straightened up, and sauntered toward the restroom. Her bladder was the size of a pea.

  Gary

  She wasn’t a member of the church, the woman he’d sinned with this time, and Gary wasn’t sure if that lessened the offense. It had started when he’d thought her attraction to him might draw her to love what he stood for, the good ways of the church, but then he’d slipped and yielded to temptation again. His motivation this time had been pure, and it was the first time it had happened since he’d been Saved and become a real Reverend himself through GetOrdained-Now. com.

  The transgression had weighed on him for months, a worry about whether his intention made a difference. Had he risked his soul? And almost worse, might his trespass be somehow discovered and put the church he’d founded in jeopardy? But then, the Baptist minister called him Brother Gary and asked him to read the twenty-third Psalm at the funeral, as a professional courtesy, and Gary took it as an answer straight from Jesus himself. He was recognized as a man of God. He’d been forgiven.

  Gary knew that men stray but that as long as repentance was genuine, there was, indeed, salvation. There were, after all, worse sins than fornicating. He’d yielded to temptation, yes, but when he’d read the words, Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever, he’d understood. Mercy. Mercy was the operative word in the message to him, and he had been given that gift. He would lie down in green pastures and by still waters. His soul was restored. Forgiven, though it was his task to safeguard his church and the souls gathered in it. Confession would be selfish.

  Good works were the key. He needed to show his gratitude, that he was committed to growing the church. After the funeral, he told his mother and aunt that he would drive his aunt’s car and possessions home to Indiana, that she needn’t hire anyone. Of course, his aunt CarolSue protested that he didn’t have to do that for her, but he insisted, telling her that a U-Haul trailer would be far less expensive, and he would take much better care of her things than a stranger. He would load and unload them himself, too, and they could be placed exactly where she and his mother wanted. A much better Plan than theirs, surely. When CarolSue said, “But Gary, that’s just too much for you to have to do for me. I’d insist on paying you,” he answered, “You know what would really help me? If maybe you could either make a donation to the church or better yet, maybe do a little volunteer work sometime when we need help.”

  He saw his mother—never a big fan of his work—shoot a warning glance at his aunt, but CarolSue, who could usually be counted on to take his side, hardly hesitated before she said, “Well, I’d be happy to make a donation.”

  Maybe this was why he’d been tempted and fallen. No telling what greater good might come from drawing Aunt CarolSue in. It was set in motion now, anyway. The women would be home in Shandon well before him, since they’d flown out this morning and he was hardly making sixty-five miles an hour up I-75 in CarolSue’s car with a fat U-Haul hitched behind and swaying when he turned; the rest of the traffic was doing close to eighty. It was harrowing, but worth it, even though he really couldn’t see what was behind him.

  Chapter 4

  CarolSue

  “The house looks nice, hon,” I said when Louisa came in the back door. “You didn’t tell me you put up shelves in the hallway bathroom.” We’d just arrived from the airport and were opening the house up, and bringing our things in from her car, which she’d left at the Indianapolis airport. It had taken us an hour and a half to get to the farm from there and I was plain worn out, but Louisa had run out to check the chickens and let them out of the coop. The animals always come first with her.

  “Oh, you made it in there before you collapsed, huh?” she said, mocking me for being sprawled on the couch.

  “Right behind you, Sister. As usual, you were blocking my way. You coulda used your own . . .” I said, meaning the bathroom that was off the master bedroom.

  “I, uh . . . don’t go in there.”

  “Huh?”

  “I don’t use that one.”

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “Nothing, I . . . nothing. Let’s get you settled. We need to do Gary’s old room over for you. I asked Gus a couple days ago and he said he’ll paint it. There’s not much of Gary’s old stuff in it, so I’ll get it packed up and we’ll make it really comfortable and all yours. Shouldn’t take long at all. I want you to pick out your own curtains and spread anyway.”

  I knew I was sitting there looking stupid. I just wasn’t sure if I was too tired to follow what she was saying or if it just made no sense. If nothing was wrong with her bathroom, why didn’t she go in there?

  Then she insulted me. “Why are you sitting there with your mouth hanging open? You look like you’re trying to catch flies. That’s what I have Marvelle for.” Marvelle was Louisa’s tuxedo cat who was too lazy to catch a fly lying dead on the ground in front of her. Right then, in fact, she was snoring in a late patch of sun on the rag rug, right where she’d be most in the way of anyone who wanted a snack in the kitchen. Like me.

  Diversion was one of Louisa’s tactics; I’d been on to it for years. “Why on earth wouldn’t you use a perfectly good bathroom? You’re making about as much sense as Mom used to.”

  “None of your business,” she said, ever the eloquent former teacher. “Let’s put your stuff away.” With that, she picked up my suitcase and cut from the living room through the kitchen and down the hall.

  “How’d you ever come up with such an original line?” I shouted after her. Irritated, I hauled myself up and followed her. Hungry, and done in, I thought, This all is a mistake. What am I doing here?

  Why can’t I just stay in the guest room? I came to my senses with the thought and then immediately said it out loud to her. “Why can’t I stay in the guest room? Huh?” She was putting my suitcase on Gary’s old bed as I stood in the hall, demanding. I went to the next door, the one to the guest room, which was closed, and turned the knob.

  Oh. It was obviously being used. Not at the moment, I don’t mean, but someone was using it regularly. Or wait. Two people. A man and a woman. Those pajama bottoms laid on the bottom of the bed sure weren’t Louisa’s, and neither
were those giant brown slippers sticking out half under the bed. But that flowered robe hanging on the hook sure was, and so was the hand lotion by one side of the bed. There were little scattered things around the room, a lot of Louisa’s, I saw, but some others that I knew weren’t hers: petroleum jelly, for example. Louisa can’t stand that stuff. Then, the cincher. A pill bottle on the night table next to the bed. I picked it up. No!

  Yes. A certain well-known medication for older men afflicted with a condition that affects their romantic functioning.

  “Louisa! Oh my God! Are you and Gus . . . doing it?” I yelled it out. I couldn’t help myself.

  “Are you snooping? Get out of there.” There’s no mistaking it when Louisa gives an order.

  I went to the door of Gary’s room. “You’re doing it!”

  “Maybe.” She didn’t look at me. She was pulling stuff out of Gary’s bureau—old sweatshirts—and stuffing them in my suitcase. The clothes in my suitcase had been piled on his bed.

  “I don’t want Gary’s crap in my suitcase.”

  “I don’t have anything to put these in. It’s temporary.”

  Dammit, I got off track. “Never mind. You’re doing it. And you didn’t tell me!”

  “Don’t picture that.”

  “Oh my God, you’re blushing. You’re doing it. Does he . . . live here?”

  “Of course not! What kind of tramp do you think I am?”

  “Hmmm. Well—”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. He calls on me and some calls are a little longer than others. We . . . nap.”

  “Is that what you call it?”

  I got her defiant look then. “We nap.”

  “Right. You nap. And what am I supposed to do while you nap?”

  “I don’t know. Play loud music.”

  “I’d think that would interfere with your sleep.” Sarcasm is a talent we both inherited from Mom. Louisa believes she is more gifted than I, but it’s only because I practice more restraint. Or I did before I moved in with my sister.

  * * *

  Maybe Louisa thought I’d had enough for one day when she made sure I went to bed before she did. She couldn’t possibly have thought I wasn’t going to find out. Maybe she figured I wouldn’t “overreact,” as she put it, if I got a good night’s sleep. Well, she could have figured out that I’d have slept a lot better if the teenage boy who works for her, Brandon, hadn’t brought her Lab puppy, Jessie, home that night. He’d kept the young dog for my sister because Louisa has an aversion to kennels. Brandon had also come daily to look after the place, feed the chickens, and check on Marvelle, Rosie the goat, and Aunt Peace and Aunt Plenty, the barn cats. (Yes, of course, those last three are named for characters from Rose in Bloom. My sister had concluded that Louisa May Alcott had given her characters better names than the actual, historical Transcendentalists had, no matter how much she liked their thinking.) But between Jessie’s exuberant greeting, which she found necessary to repeat when anything roused her from snoozing, and her decision later that the only place she could possibly sleep for the night was with me, on Gary’s bed, I wasn’t exactly relaxed and well rested the next day, when I got the next shock.

  * * *

  I saw it with my own eyes in the morning. Thanks to Jessie I was awake before Louisa. I’d used the bathroom and just happened to be on my way out of it when there she was, in her robe, opening the door to the guest room to come into the hallway. Caught barefooted.

  “Is he in there?” I was outraged.

  “He who?”

  “Gus!” I whispered. Maybe it was more like a hiss.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You think he climbed in the damn window?”

  “Why are you in the guest room then?”

  She shrugged, turned sideways to go around me, didn’t look at me as she did. “Felt like it . . . bed’s better. Did you make coffee?”

  “I just woke up.”

  “Just switch it on. I set it up last night. Can you do it while I pee?” she said as she went into the bathroom.

  “Got it,” I said, and did. But I’ll tell you this. I didn’t believe her about the bed.

  I waited her out, though, knowing that after breakfast she’d get dressed—yes, she went back into the guest room, which clearly wasn’t for guests anymore—and when she came out, dressed in a typical Louisa god-awful getup, she headed out to feed the chickens. It was only because I didn’t want to slow her down that I managed not to say, “Tell me you’ve never let him see you look like that.”

  I watched through the kitchen window to make sure she was engrossed with the chickens. I opened the kitchen window a couple of inches to make sure I’d hear her out there because I knew she talks to them all the time. Then, of course, I headed straight for the door I hadn’t opened yet, the one to her real bedroom, the one she’d shared all those years with her husband, Harold, until he’d killed himself, six months after their only grandson Cody was killed by a drunk driver. Harold couldn’t go on, believing he carried the weight of failure to find justice for the boy he loved so truly. And, of course, he never got over blaming Gary. Still, nobody really understood Gary’s turn to the religious cult, it seemed an obvious scam, but I guess guilt can weigh so much that a body can’t stagger another step without a way to put it down. Gary was promised something he needed more desperately than his savings, and though that preacher snaked his way on to his next tent full of victims, Gary was hooked. The internet reeled him in. But all that’s Louisa’s story to tell, not mine, and maybe you couldn’t bear it anyway.

  I digressed there for a minute, didn’t I? So, Louisa was out with the chickens clucking around, carrying on with the girls as if she’s the original mother hen. I realized I was getting testy because I flat didn’t know what else she was keeping from me. We’d never kept anything from each other. Not that I knew of anyway. Until her last grand Plan, come to think of it. Maybe that had gone to her head and now she thought she didn’t need me. Well, I’d have to show her she couldn’t get away with that crap.

  I marched to her bedroom and opened the door.

  Chapter 5

  Gary

  Gary knew it was far too late for him to redeem himself with Nicole, even though she’d never remarried. Adultery was too much for her to accept, and who could blame her? He loved her still, and it wasn’t devoid of an element of lust. He didn’t know what had come over him when he’d had the episode with her sister-in-law, just crazy stupid, he supposed, and pure bad luck that Nicole’s brother caught them right in the act. Made it difficult to deny, for one, and for two, he blushed if he remembered it, his own bare ass bobbing up and down in the air like some kind of a carnival target when Rocco walked in on him and Sandra. It had put him at a distinct disadvantage in the confrontation that followed. For three, it was a major sin: Nicole being wrapped up in their son’s activities and her job, not absorbed in his problems anymore, was no excuse. Or so he’d been told, and he’d come to see his error. Too late, though, and she’d divorced him and moved back to her hometown long before Cody was killed. His being Saved afterward hadn’t moved a last green leaf in the hacked-off thicket of their abandoned marriage; he’d let her know about it, but she’d not responded. He still wondered how she survived losing their son, and if she, too, thought Cody wouldn’t have been killed by that drunk driver if he’d been a better father. He’d never know, he guessed. She’d never been one to lash him with her words when they were married.

  The second time he’d fallen was worse because it was after he’d been Saved, thanks to the balm of Brother Zachariah’s words, and permission to donate. Then, even though his savings were gone, he’d been able to get himself ordained and establish his own church. There were new faithful now, supporting him and his work. Evangelism was endless and many new members didn’t have the funds even to tithe. But Reverend Gary turned no one away, especially not the ones whose lives were broken, as his had been, first by Cody’s death, and then his father’s. How could he have closed the church door to
Rosalina, with immigration agents all over and Jesus Is The Answer proclaimed on the very banner he had hanging on the side of the rented white barn that served as his church? She’d spent months making her way up from Honduras, trusting the human smugglers her father had paid. The conditions in the back of that truck must have been brutal. Two died, she said. (The heat. No water. She’d answered flat and matter-of fact, as if he should have known.) Survivors heard it was safer in the Midwest, so after crossing the border, she’d worked her way up from Texas. It wasn’t safer anymore. Agents spread out after raiding the warehouses near Indianapolis where immigrants who didn’t have good papers could get hired anyway. Some of the undocumented made it from the city into surrounding rural areas to hide, hoping for work, and found it with a convenience store chain that had stores around the city of Elmont. Some nurseries that supplied garden stores couldn’t find enough American workers; they paid less and under the table, but it was something.

  Gary understood the despair of suffering souls and gave them the same comfort and hope he’d been given. Especially Rosalina. His mistake had been touching her. But she’d been crying, that was how it had started.

  At least he’d stopped. He’d come to his senses afterward. Yes, he’d sinned but he counted it as a sign that he’d not been caught, but stopped himself after those few days, repented on his own. How could he not have put money in Rosalina’s hand, given her food, a change of clothes from a woman in his flock when he told her she had to go? She’d acted hurt, even though he drove her to the nearest Catholic church. He’d had to stop himself from the sinning. It had been the right thing to do. The sin remained, though, a rock on his chest, as had his failure to minister to the least among them, until he’d received the sign at his uncle’s funeral.