Sea Glass_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [88]
She lays the dish towel over the lip of the sink — slowly and carefully, like someone trying to control herself. “That’s what you think I do all day?” she asks.
“You have to let me handle business in my own way, Honora. I know what I’m doing.”
“You know that Louis is a Communist,” she says.
“The rest aren’t.”
“It could be dangerous,” she says.
He leans in conspiratorially toward her face. “Look at this sweet deal we’ve got now. They’re going to take care of the mortgage and feed us. What could be better?”
“What could be better?” she asks. “Having a husband who doesn’t withhold information from me would be better,” she says. “Having a husband I can trust would be better.”
“I couldn’t have sold those machines,” he says. “It wouldn’t have been legal.”
“Since when have you cared about something being legal?” she snaps. And immediately he can see that she knows she’s gone too far. She puts a hand to her forehead. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
But that’s all right, Sexton thinks. Because he’s got the high ground now. He can make this sale.
“You let me handle this, all right?” he says, bending over and kissing her on the side of her mouth. “I’ll see you,” he adds. “Next weekend or earlier.”
“Sexton,” she calls to him, but by then he is already across the kitchen. He makes a conscious decision to pretend he hasn’t heard her.
In the hallway, McDermott is standing by the front door. Has the man been waiting for him all this time? Did he overhear that little marital tiff in the kitchen?
Sexton stops, pulls a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, and slides one out. He takes his time lighting it, snaps his lighter shut, and reaches down for his sack of clean laundry where it sits by the front door.
“Sandwiches in there if you want them,” Sexton says to McDermott.
McDermott
He is trembling as they stand on the walkway. He puts his hands in his pockets to stop the shaking.
“You all right?” Ross asks.
Mironson is taking forever to say good-bye. Alphonse and Sexton are already in the truck. McDermott takes one last look at Honora on the doorstep.
“Everything’s jake,” he says, turning to Ross.
Alice Willard
Dear Honora,
I have sent you three letters but am worried as I haven’t had a reply in some time. I am glad that you managed to write to Harold. I can only assume that the strike has kept you and Sexton busy.
Aren’t these days beautiful? I can hardly remember a longer stretch of good weather. I suppose we will all be complaining in the fall about the lack of water and how our grass is brown but for now it is lovely.
Bernice Radcliffe said the service for Harold was very nice, though I thought Rev. Wolfe could have been a bit more personal in his homily. What he said could be applied to almost anyone around here and I think he ignored some of Harold’s unique qualities, like the fact that he did his best to live a full life even though he was blind. But at least the service wasn’t maudlin like some I have been to. And Harold is no longer suffering. It is very quiet here.
The Concord newspaper is full of stories about the strike in Ely Falls, and I didn’t like one bit reading about that woman who took a beating from the police when all she was doing was trying to get food for her family. You stay away from Ely Falls now. I know that Sexton has to go there and be on the picket line like everyone else, but I hope you are