Page 2 of Veil of Silence

“Stop answering him.”

Her gaze jumps to mine. “What?”

“Let him leave messages. If he’s angry enough to say something he shouldn’t, better to have it in his own voice than yours.”

Shelby goes still. “You think it’ll come to that?”

I keep my tone mild and concerned. It’s the same tone I always use with her. “I think a man who won’t leave a woman alone usually keeps on not leaving her alone.”

Under the table, the boy runs his car up the leg of his mom’s chair and makes a sound like a siren. She reaches down without looking and puts her hand on his head.

“He’s Preston’s father.” Her fingers move through the boy’s hair. “I keep thinking he wouldn’t take him. Whatever else he is, he loves Preston.”

I take my time with the cornbread. “Maybe he wouldn’t. But you don’t want to find out you were wrong after he’s already driven away with your son.”

That does it. Something goes out of her shoulders, and something else comes into her face.

Fear.

I put it there.

Two months of nudging her toward the same conclusion. Don’t trust him. Keep Preston close. Pay attention when his father gets angry.

None of it has been a lie exactly. That’s the beauty of it.

Now if something happens, everybody will already know where to look.

I almost smile at my brilliance, but I don’t.

Brother Dale claps his hands at the front and announces prayer meeting will start in ten minutes. Chairs scrape against the floor, and somebody’s baby starts crying.

Shelby stacks her plate on Preston’s and stands. “Thank you,” she tells me. “I mean it. I don’t know who else I’d talk to about this.”

“That’s what we’re here for.” I must have one of those trustworthy faces. I’ve been told that before.

She takes Preston by the hand, drops their paper plates into the trash can near the sanctuary doors, then heads inside. Preston is still running the car through the air over his head, banking it around the corner of the doorframe.

I finish what I want from my plate and toss everything else in the trash.

Pauline catches me before I reach the sanctuary. “You heard anything from Nora?”

Nora Loveless isn’t here for the third Wednesday running. I’m not the only one who’s noticed.

I shake my head. “Can’t say I have.”

“Poor thing.” She glances around before lowering her voice. “That family’s been through enough for ten lifetimes. I just hate that she’s staying away from church now. Seems like this is when she’d need people around her the most.”

“People handle things different ways.”

“I suppose.” Pauline pats my arm. “Still, you’d think she’d want the church supporting her.”

“You’d think.”

She heads into the sanctuary.

I don’t. Not yet.

Two nights ago, the light in the Loveless house was on until nearly three in the morning. It was the same downstairs light that usually goes dark before midnight.