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“Like England’s illustrious statesman, Winston Churchill, I can be very tenacious.”
“You’re wasting your time,” Laura warned lightly and flashed her engagement ring as a reminder.
“Perhaps,” Sebastian replied, clearly unconvinced.
Laura carried a gallon jug of milk to the refrigerator. “If you come across a package of hot dogs, leave them out. Every child I’ve ever known loves them. I thought we could fix some for lunch and heat one of those cans of soup for Mrs. Mitchell.”
As soon as the groceries were put away, the two of them set about fixing lunch for the children. Carrot sticks, fresh grapes, and milk rounded out the meal of hot dogs and chips. Sebastian buckled the little girl in her high chair while Laura poured some vegetable beef soup into an oversized mug she found in the cupboard.
“If you can handle things here, I’ll take this in to Mrs. Mitchell,” she told Sebastian.
“I believe I can manage,” he replied and deftly righted the little girl’s drink cup before it toppled off the tray and onto the floor.
Confident that he could, Laura exited the kitchen, soup mug in hand. Briefly she tried to visualize Boone in Sebastian’s place, but it was simply too ludicrous. If Boone had been with her, he would have handled the situation differently: the authorities would have been called, the injured woman whisked off to the nearest medical facility, and the children turned over to a social service agency. He wouldn’t have seen the need to involve himself personally. Laura wasn’t entirely sure why she had.
The woman was awake when Laura entered the bedroom. “I brought you some soup,” she told her.
“Thanks.” The woman pushed herself up into a sitting position, but it was obvious that she was in pain.
Laura set the mug on the table and helped the woman adjust the propping pillows behind her. “Sebastian mentioned he gave you a couple aspirins. Did they help any?”
“A little. I’ll be fine, though,” she added hastily.
The anger came back for the man who inflicted this abuse on her. “I hope you feel better than you look.” Laura didn’t try to soften the sharp edge of her voice as she placed the mug in the woman’s hands. “Can you manage to feed yourself?”
The woman nodded in answer and dipped the spoon into the soup. Laura watched her take the first few spoonfuls. Then the effort seemed to exhaust the woman. She rescued the soup mug from the woman’s loosening grip and set it on the table.
“Tell me when you want some more, Mrs . . .” she began, then stopped. “It doesn’t feel right to keep calling you Mrs. Mitchell. What’s your first name?”
“Gail.”
“Mine’s Laura.” Rather than tower over her, Laura settled onto the edge of the bed.
The woman named Gail made a weak attempt at a smile, hesitated, then said, “He didn’t mean to hurt me, you know. Gary is really a good, kind man.”
“Maybe I should bring you a mirror so you can see what he did to you,” Laura suggested dryly. “There isn’t much good or kind about it.”
“He didn’t mean to,” she insisted again. “He’d been drinking. It never would have happened if he hadn’t.”
“How often is he sober?” Laura challenged, irritated at the way the woman kept defending this animal who masqueraded as a man.
Avoiding a direct answer, Gail plucked at the top sheet. “None of this started until the mine closed. Before that he was a wonderful, lovi
ng husband and father.” She let her head rest against the headboard and gazed at the ceiling as if recalling better times. “We were going to leave when everybody else did, but neither one of us wanted to go back to the city, and the county had an opening in the road maintenance department. Gary was sure he was going to get the job. Every month they kept saying next month. In the end they didn’t hire anyone. Budget problems, they said. By then we had used up what little savings we had. Then his unemployment insurance ran out.”
It wasn’t hard to guess what happened next. “And he started drinking.”
Instantly defensive, she met Laura’s skeptical gaze. “Gary is a proud man. You have no idea how much it hurts not to be able to take care of his family.”
Laura wouldn’t relent in her opinion of the man. “Is that the reason your cupboards were bare? He was too proud to apply for food stamps?”
The woman turned her face away. “We get food stamps.”
The statement confused Laura, but only for a second. “Let me guess: he sold them for cash so he could buy booze?”
“No,” she denied, stung by the remark. “He needed gas money for the truck so he could go look for a job.”
“Where? At Harry’s?” It was tough talk, but Laura was determined to open the woman’s eyes.
