Seven Sisters - Earlene Fowler [72]
“Get things straightened out with that detective?” Isaac asked.
I brought my knees up and rested my chin on them. “I know I sounded like a brat this afternoon, but that business about his mother being a photographer is a flat-out lie.”
“And how do you know that?”
“In the few days I’ve known him, he’s claimed his mother lived in four different towns and had as many different occupations. It’s either some kind of stupid game he’s playing, or he’s a pathological liar. I’m leaning toward the latter.”
Isaac stretched his arm across the back of the swing. “He seemed nice enough.”
“Well, you talked to him for exactly two minutes, so I wouldn’t be trusting him with your life savings if I were you.”
With his thumb and forefinger, he thumped the back of my head gently. “Your mouth is getting a tad too sharp for my taste, kiddo.”
I sighed and leaned my head against his thick, warm shoulder. In the dark September evening, the crickets echoed the squeak, squeak of the porch swing being pushed by Isaac’s foot. “I’m sorry. I’m just in a funk tonight.”
“I noticed. You’ve been checking your watch about every ten minutes. Doesn’t Gabe have a cell phone? Why don’t you just call him and see when he’s going to be home?”
“He leaves it in the Corvette, and they probably took Lydia’s car to her mother’s since Sam and Bliss were going, too.” Inside the house, I could hear Dove’s cajoling voice on the phone. Whoever she was speaking to wouldn’t stand a chance. “Besides, I don’t want to seem . . . ” I thought for a moment, searching for the right word. “I don’t know, possessive. Or paranoid. It’s not like this has been going on for months. It’s only been a week and a stressful one at that. If our marriage can’t withstand a week of weird behavior, then we haven’t got much of a marriage.”
He patted my shoulder. “He’s acting like a self-indulgent adolescent. I think you’re showing remarkable patience.”
“You don’t think I’m being too passive? With what everyone else has been saying, I can’t help wondering if I’m being a wimp.”
“Wimp is a word I’d never use to describe you, my dear,” he said, laughing. “And there’s a world of difference between patience and passivity.”
“The thing is, even though it irritates me, I think I understand what he’s feeling. He’s more insecure than people realize. One of the few things he told me about his and Lydia’s breakup was her contempt for what he did for a living. He was working undercover, and I guess that’s pretty hard on a family—his hours were erratic, he was moody and angry all the time, had trouble reconnecting with the real world when he wasn’t working. I don’t blame her for pushing him to get out of it. I’m not sure I could have lived with him either. But she said some pretty ugly things about his capabilities of making a living, of supporting his family, about his masculinity. She really hurt his ego, and he’s never forgotten it.”
“He told you all this?”
“Some of it. Some I pieced together myself.”
“So you think he’s out to prove she was wrong and in the process rub her nose in it a little.”
“Something like that. At least, that’s what it seems like to me.”
“But you and he haven’t actually talked about it.”
I stretched out my legs, tingling from being in one position too long, and studied the tips of my boots. “No, with all that’s gone on with Sam and Bliss and the murder, we haven’t had much time to talk about anything else.”
“You’ll have to deal with it eventually.”
“I know. And we will. I’m just trying to let it happen in its own time. That’s one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned in the last few years. You can’t make things happen before they’re supposed to or make people do things they don’t want to do. Besides, I can’t help remembering how understanding and open-minded he was about me staying in my inherited house in Morro Bay last May. He was really there for me when I was acting a little nutso; it only seems fair that I should grant him the same grace.” I gave him a half smile. “Providing it doesn’t last longer than a week, that is. Then I may just have to get out my trusty bullwhip.