Right from Wrong : A Novel

Sunny was right where Gil had left her, nose red from the cold, eyes red, too,but she wasn't crying anymore. He was glad of that much. But the swollen placeon her cheekbone made him want to hunt down that bastard husband of hers and guthim like a fish. The suit coat belonged to Gabe O'Barr, lent to Gil by Gabe'smother, and the sleeves hung so long on Sunny she looked like her hands weremissing. It brought an image to Gil's mind of some of those boys on the shipcoming back. Her fingertips emerged when she lifted her arms to take the babyagainst her and the image receded.

"Thank you," she murmured, and folded a flap of the coat around Isabel's littlehead.

Even after all the work he'd put in on the Hudson that afternoon, the damnedthing wouldn't start. He'd spent three hours at Uncle Dane's workbench cleaningthe carburetor with spirit oil, taking it apart, putting it back together again,but the choke still wouldn't close right. He got out in the stinging wind andshut it manually, and when the car still wouldn't start, he let loose with astring of swearwords before he remembered Sunny sitting beside him.

"Well," she said. "I guess they taught you how to cuss over there."

"Sorry."

She shrugged and turned her attention back on the baby, patting her tosleep.

The car finally fired up on the tenth try and held. He pumped the acceleratorto prime the carburetor. He checked to see if the air register beneath Sunny'sfeet was open to let in the heat funneled back from the radiator. "It'll warm upin here in a minute," he said, holding his hand flat toward the floor, but hemight as well have been talking to himself. She was staring off out

her window. He shifted into gear and moved the car from the church lot.

In the dim glow from the dashboard, he could see that her jaw had alsoswollen out of shape. That place on her cheekbone was high enough to creep intoa shiner. Everybody would know then that her pissant husband had smacked her. Hedidn't think Uncle Dane would tolerate a shiner on her, no more than Gil himselfplanned to. Uncle Dane kept a shotgun in his barn, a heavy-bore, single-barrelshotgun that would even up the odds if that little bastard's brother or hisbuddy tried to involve themselves.

The wind was vicious and it took both hands to hold the car on the road. Hetried to keep an eye out for ruts, but it was hard with Sunny tugging at hisconcentration. The tires hit a few.

The silence between them seemed to gather its own momentum, and he knew ifhe didn't speak soon the opportunity would be lost. He said, "Is it because ofhow he looks? Blond hair and blue eyes?"

She turned her face toward him, coming out of whatever trance she'd been in."What?"

"He treats you like dirt. And if he's got any brains, he doesn't show it. So Ifigure it must be his looks." Gil almost missed a curve watching for her answer.He had to oversteer to keep the car on the road. "So tell me what you see inhim. Give me something to go on."

She bent toward the baby in her lap. "He never lifted a hand to me before."

"Well, now he has. And that'll make it easier for him next time. And beforeyou know it, he'll be slapping you around whenever he feels like it. Any timeyou don't answer him quick enough, or he doesn't like what you have to say."

They came up on the last turn to the farm and he wasn't ready to be thereyet. He still had things to say, questions to ask her, answers to hear. And heknew once they got there she'd go running off into her room, avoiding him likeshe'd been doing since he arrived. So he pulled the car over to the side of theroad. The headlamps caught tufts of muley grass lying supine in the fierce wind.

He took the car out of gear and let up on the clutch. He couldn't stand toomuch of that clutch. He massaged his left thigh, kept his right foot on thebrake. "Grab yourself some sense, Sunny, and quit him. Do it right now."

She patted her baby's back, but it had become more like a nervous tic thannecessary. Isabel was fast asleep, and Sunny's eyes were fastened on him. "It'snone of your business, Gil."

"Well, maybe I'll make it my business. Uncle Dane offered to lease me apiece of the Kennedy tract. Maybe I'll just take him up on it."

"What? Why would you do that? You hate farming."

"Yeah, that was my first thought, too. But now I don't know. Maybe it's notsuch a bad idea. Got no other prospects looming on my horizon. And it seems likeyou need somebody around here looking out for you."

She stared at him, then she tucked Isabel against her shoulder and reachedfor the door lever. "Thanks for bringing me home. I can walk from here."

He grabbed her before she could get the door open. "Dammit, Sunny, stopacting like you don't know me."

"Quit trying to butt in, Gil!"

The baby went to fussing at the loud talk and at getting jostled around.Sunny took up her patting again, faster and harder, but at least she settledback from the door. He left his arm resting on the seat behind her, watched hercalm Isabel down again. He quelled the urge to apologize.

"I'm not going around with him. He's my husband."

"You know what I mean." He let his hand touch her shoulder. He could feelher bones, small and fragile, through the thick wool of the jacket. "You weresupposed to wait for me."

"You told me to forget you."

"No, I did not say that."

"To stop thinking about you, then. It's the same thing." She dropped herhead back against the seat of the car and his arm, as if she were too tired touse her neck anymore. Little Isabel had gone back to sleep, and a tear glittereddown Sunny's face.

A sharp gust rocked the car, whistled around the windows. He reached acrossand gentled his thumb along the curve of her throat. She didn't move. "So didyou?" he said. "Stop thinking about me?"

She kept on staring at the roof of the car, her neck ivory white and smooth. Sheswallowed and turned her face toward him. Later he would try to remember if hekissed her first or if she kissed him, but whichever the case, passion tookcontrol of it. He remembered the taste of her lips, the desire she roused inhim. He pulled her closer and he never even felt his foot leave the brake pedal.

The road at that particular spot was fairly level, but with a subtle slopeto the ditch for drainage. Gil had stopped the car a little to the right of thecenter, so there was a slight incline, just enough to start the rotation of thewheels. That afternoon he had set the idle higher to compensate for thetemperamental choke, and without his foot on the brake to hold the car back,they went bouncing out into the ditch, up onto the other side, and smacked intoa barbed-wire fence. Luckily it didn't take but a second or two for Gil'sreflexes to recover. Any longer and they might have plowed right through thatfence and into Ezra Hennesey's cow pasture.

"Are you OK?" he said, after he had bucked the car to a halt. Sunny had atight hold on little Isabel, but the baby didn't appear to have even awakened. Afeisty Boston terrier-type dog came woofing out onto the road at them.

Sunny laughed, a releasing kind of laugh, the same way she had laughed at histeasing her during the pageant. The sound of it sent his heart beating again. Healmost forgot that the car was spraddling the ditch and reached to pull her backin his arms. Out on the road, the terrier kept raising hell.

"Mr. Hennesey'll be coming out any minute." She sounded gleeful andmischievous. She tugged away. "Can you get us out of here?"

He touched her hair, kissed her baby's head, and shifted the Hudson intoreverse. The wheels spun dust for a second before they caught hold. The barbedwire scraped a long, screaming gash down the side, but the car needed a newpaint job anyway. He shifted gears again and pulled out onto the road.

Copyright © 1999 Cindy Bonner. All rights reserved.
ISBN: 1-56512-104-X