Folly Beach - Dorothea Benton Frank [38]
I heard something else from the kitchen, something muffled. Then there was a slam. The back door. Then it got quiet. I thought, oh no! Now DuBose is dead, bleeding from the head, lying in a pool of his own blood. There was blood everywhere! I knew it!
Now I had to hurry downstairs and save my husband. Oh, dear God! Jenifer was upstairs! What if the thug was still in the house? After weighing both sides, I decided to go it alone. There was no reason to wake her up and hide her in the closet, was there? Wouldn’t this monster see her unmade bed and figure out there was someone else in the house? Wait! What if he had come to kill us and kidnap her like that Lindbergh baby? Oh, sweet Mother of God! Please pray for us!
I didn’t even stop for my slippers, but I picked up the poker from the upstairs fireplace and sneaked across the floor. It creaked. I cringed, stopping and waiting for a second to see if I could hear anything downstairs. Silence. So I continued toward the steps and made my way down them, as quietly as a palmetto bug.
I could see the warm yellow glow of the overhead light in the kitchen as it cast itself in geometric shards across the floor and out into the room where I stood. My heart was in my throat. I tried to slide along the wall, not breathing, and peeked in the room from the corner of my eye. There was my darling DuBose, sitting at the table eating a sandwich.
“What on earth are you doing?” I said with my hand across my racing heart.
“Eating a peanut butter sandwich and drinking a glass of milk. Can I make something for you?”
“Since when do you eat peanut butter?”
“Since now, I guess. It just seemed appetizing.”
“So, there’s no robber, no killer here to murder us all?”
“Nope. Just a raccoon in the garbage bin outside. We can clean it up in the morning.”
“I’m going back to bed.”
“Are you sure? This is awfully good.”
Men.
Fade to Darkness
Chapter Ten
The Porgy House
It was seven in the morning. I was in the kitchen getting fatter by the minute, bingeing on the sweet mysteries of leftover pecan pie, nearly euphoric from its healing properties. Pecan pies, especially the ones that Ella made, lifted my spirits to such spiraling heights I decided that if I could, I would have a slice every breakfast for the rest of my life. But, my confessor would be glad to know, I was sipping hot coffee with skim milk to compensate for my sins.
The house was dead quiet and I moved around like a little mouse in socks, gliding silently on the lemon wax of Aunt Daisy’s highly polished heart pine floors. To the outside observer it might seem odd for a newly widowed middle-aged woman to sock-skate across her auntie’s floor but it was what I had done as a child on these very same floors and I was home again. Besides, you should never pass up an opportunity to dance.
I put my plate in the dishwasher, careful not to rattle the racks, refilled my mug, and walked gingerly out toward the living-room doors that led to the enormous front deck suspended high over the dunes. From that vantage point, the sweeping water view was so pretty it took my breath away as it always had every single time. Aunt Daisy’s simple deck ranked high among my favorite places anywhere in the world. It filled me with such peace to watch the ocean, dimples glistening and currents moving, demanding my undivided attention, and my undivided attention it would have. This was where I would park myself until Aunt Daisy and Ella were awake.
I had the doorknob firmly in the clasp of my hand. Just then, right before I could turn that doorknob, I swear to you that in that very split second, I heard rushing, clomping footsteps overhead, a triple beep, and then Aunt Daisy’s voice.
“Alarm’s off!” she called out.
The woman had eyes in the back of her head. How else could she know that I was about to trip the alarm? Maybe she heard a floorboard make a familiar creak, but could her