Page 160 of The Widow and the Wanted

“Well now,” Goldie calls from the balcony. “What in God's name is all this racket? It’s 11:30 in the morning. Don’t you know some people are trying to get their beauty sleep?”

Every head turns upward.

Goldie leans over the railing in a silk wrapper, cigarette in one hand and a coffee cup in the other. She squints down at Alfred lying in the mud.

“What happened to him?”

“Momma, this is Dr. Alfred Collins. Okee’s father,” Lula calls back.

Goldie's eyebrows shoot up as she takes a thoughtful drag. The cigarette bounces between her lips as she mutters, “Well then. We’re practically in-laws. Pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

Alfred closes his eyes, chest heaving as he settles, going limp as a starfish with defeat.

“You in any pain?” Goldie asks.

“Quite a bit, yes.”

She disappears from the balcony. A moment later her voice echoes from inside.

“Doris! Bring me the laudanum!”

Alfred's head lifts.

There is a pause.

Then: “Laudanum?”

Lula offers a hand again. “I’d have made you a cup of willow bark tea. What momma has is a sight stronger.”

At last, Alfred accepts her help.

Lula squares herself before him, plants her boots, and drops into a slight crouch as though she has been hoisting half-dead men twice her size all her life.

Knowing Lula, she probably has.

Boone and I stand aside with our arms crossed, watching the pair of them negotiate the task with all the dignity two proud people can muster while one of them is injured and the other barely reaches his shoulder.

If she ends up in the mud with him, well.

That will be the natural consequence of her choices.

Goldie reappears, holding the bottle triumphantly over her head. “We have a winner.”

Stepping back onto the boardwalk, hunched forward slightly with the back half of his summer suit painted brown, he sighs and lifts his chin. I can see the gears turn slowly in that judgmental head of his.

“You want it, or you going to keep looking at me like I milked it from Satan?”

“Momma,” Lula chides.

“What? This is the good shit. Despite my daughter’s infamy, I can assure you we do not peddle in poison at the Gemini, Mr. Collins. It would be bad for business.”

A spasm seems to take hold of him a moment as his upper body jerks oddly over his hip. He wriggles with a pinched expression. A strangled sound dies in his throat before he exhales, sweat beading on his forehead.

“My apologies, madam. I greatly appreciate your generosity.”

“All right then,” she says, ashing her cigarette over the balcony. “I’ll be over directly.”

Chapter 40