COLD SNAP

by

Patrick Church
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1.

A delicious, red-glowing fire in the stone hearth suffused the bedroom with warmth as

Esther Bainbridge snuggled beneath the feather comforter and waited for her maid

Consuelo to bring her a cup of apple cider tea with cinnamon.

Unable to suppress a girlish giggle of satisfaction, in spite of her mature years, Esther

contemplated the cold landscape outside her window. The live oak and pecan branches

bent wearily under a burden of ice, and the dry Texas grass of winter was no longer pale

cream in color, but a frosty silver. It crackled underfoot like eggshells. The birdbath by

the circular drive that led up to the front door was frozen solid, a few birds pecking

uselessly at its mirror surface.

The wide street was deserted, the old and elegant homes of Cormorant Hill closed

against the freeze. Some of the big houses were going quietly to seed as their owners’

fortunes declined generation after generation, but Esther’s home was still impeccable

years after she took it over, alone, the last of her breed. She had social standing. She had

a position to live up to. And she had money.

She might be a big duck in the little border town pond of Cormorant Hill, perched at the

edge of the Rio Grande, but it was a status she had worked to maintain and was not going

to give up.

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A brilliant winter sun, near the Western horizon now, made the unusual cold snap seem

even icier. Esther knew how frosty the weather was, because she had been out quite early

this morning. The cold had cut like slivers of glass.

With another giggle, Esther contemplated the events of the past two days. She had

been advised by phone only yesterday that her efforts to “preserve the arts”, as she

thought of it, had been noted at state level. An invitation to San Antonio to attend the

monthly meeting of the Texas Ladies’ Arts Society was practically a declaration of her

acceptance as a new member.

Esther was on the verge of receiving the recognition her wealthy family deserved, and

she had worked hard for it. A new dress, shoes, and handbag, she thought, that’s the

ticket, and with any luck the cold would last a while and she could attend the meeting

with a new fur coat to boot. She had an image to uphold.

The chill that had invaded her bones this morning was finally relenting. She just had to

take good care of herself to make sure she didn’t come down with a cold, maybe even

pneumonia, considering that she was no longer a young woman Not old, she told herself,

no, but certainly not young.

Nevertheless, she contemplated telling Consuelo to bring her a hot buttered rum instead

of the tea. Some celebration was called for. She smiled, remembering that someone in

colonial times had said that hot buttered rum made you see double and feel single. Esther

laughed out loud.

She reached over to yank on the tasseled bell-pull by her bed. She deserved that rum. It

couldn’t hurt.

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She leaned back with a contented sigh to wait for Consuelo. By God, she had managed

to force things to come together at last.

She had murdered twice. She had killed her husband fifteen years ago, and this morning

she had murdered the parish priest.

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2.

Age had been kind to Esther Bainbridge, nee Hutton, for she had been an unattractive

child and young woman. A point came when her thin, angular body and straight fine hair

were seen as evidence of having “aged well”, but in her youth the same features had

marked her for homeliness.

She had a narrow face with sharp features, and large penetrating blue eyes, her only

lovely feature. Her intelligence had made her a fine student at Cormorant Hill’s tiny

school—first grade to high school, since most of the wealthy ranch owners did not want

their young shipped off to larger schools in San Antonio where they might become

contaminated with odd ideas and unacceptable ways of behaving. Thus all of the town’s

children benefited from what was in reality a private school funded by ranching money.

What nature had not given Esther in the way of looks was offset by her father’s wealth,

but no amount of fine clothes and prime grooming could make her a pretty teenager. She

was never left out of the social world of Cormorant Hill because she was rich, but she

could see that she lacked the flirting spark of her Anglo girlfriends, and even worse, the

young Mexican girls she observed on trips across the river all seemed to have masses of

rich dark hair, such aliveness shining from their black eyes, that she felt like a faded

photograph in deadly, yellowing sepia.

Matters of sex were not completely secret to Esther, since she was familiar with ranch

life and cattle breeding, but the emotional complications of courting and marriage seemed

mysterious, deceptive, and cruel. An occasional phrase overheard from her parents’

after-dinner conversations with guests, or a certain tenseness in the atmosphere between

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her mother and father during seemingly innocent remarks, taught Esther that things were

not as they appeared.

She grew up feeling that there was danger in crossing the river—not for her, but for the

men of Cormorant Hill. Anglo women were watchful and closed-mouthed, they seemed

to share a knowledge that required no gossip, as if only the mention of “Mr. So and So

having gone across the river” held some kind of occult information.

Later, as a young woman, she knew what it meant. Prostitutes, mistresses, even second

families were kept in Ciudad Meseta.

Yet at first she didn’t link these events to her mother’s total defeat.

Esther adored her lively, playful father. He took her everywhere with him when she

was a child: to the ranch where he taught her to ride horses, to San Antonio and the opera,

to buy expensive clothes and shoes, to meet men she knew intuitively were important and

had money. She would sit quietly to one side sipping lemonade while her father shared

bourbon, cigars and jokes with friends who had huge offices and leather furniture.

She never once wondered why it was she, and not her mother, who accompanied Father

on these outings.

Somehow it seemed natural. Esther’s mother Elaine was a tall slim woman who rarely

spoke and seemed eternally occupied with the kind of tasks Esther hated at first—an

obsessive preoccupation with table settings, centerpieces, drapes, throw pillows, Persian

rugs, and the line of a dress or a stray, rebellious curl of hair.

Elaine’s perfect shell was inhabited by someone Esther didn’t know. Esther received

the most adequate of instruction in manners and the significance of her social standing,

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yet her patrician mother had never smiled at her, played with her, almost never embraced

her, and certainly had never said she loved her.

The idea of such a sentiment issuing from Elaine seemed bizarre. The notion of Elaine

lost in the throes of sexual passion bordered on madness.

Elaine’s parents were dead before Esther was born. Elaine was from an old and

wealthy Yankee family, and her marriage to Yancey Hutton was seen as a way to

preserve Elaine from the family’s dwindling income. For Father, she had been an

inestimable cultural feather in a rogue’s cap, not just a touch of class but a veritable

seminar of good breeding and fine manners.

Even Esther could perceive that Mother was ice and restraint to Father’s overheated,

loud enthusiasm. She was the only woman Esther had ever known who did not dirty her

hands even while gardening.

With time, Elaine seemed to slip quietly into a role secondary to Esther, one which she

seemed quite satisfied to inhabit. When Esther thought about it much later, before she

killed her husband but while she was still in the cold rage of discovering his unforgivable

sin, she came to the conclusion that if Elaine had ever actually been in love with Yancey,

his constant infidelities across the river put a rapid coup de grace to anything except the

costly and impenetrable façade of social correctness and status.

Elaine had her price. She was kept in the style to which she hoped always to be

accustomed.

She, in turn, relinquished what little soul she seemed to have possessed.

It was one of those common paradoxes that Esther both resented her mother’s sell-out

while valuing deeply what she had sold herself out to get.

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Perhaps because Esther wound up with the unchallenged place of privilege with Father,

she harbored the notion that she would never have to make such a choice.

Esther had suitors. She was too aware of her unattractiveness to believe she had

kindled passion in anyone’s soul, but she treasured the hope that some young man would

stay around long enough to discover that beneath her plain appearance was a girl with

potential: for passion, for tenderness, for living life with élan. In short, with all the

qualities that made her father irresistible and all the refinement that made her mother a

social paradigm.

When she was 18, there had been the son of a local rancher, Stephen Alder. He had

been handsome enough and courtly enough, perhaps too courtly. With well-concealed

excitement, Esther had waited for one of those breathless, porch-swing groping sessions

she had heard about from other girls, but such a thing never came to pass. Stephen had

given Esther a few tepid kisses that had merely inflamed her desire to experience more.

She was much too well brought-up to initiate anything on her own, and Stephen’s lack of

enthusiasm sadly confirmed her father’s irritatingly frequent remarks that Stephen was a

nice enough young lad, but his family was only interested in Esther’s money and she

could do better.

Esther seriously doubted that on her own she could ever do better. As time went by she

concluded pragmatically that money was going to be a factor, the main factor, in any

romantic future for her, and she hid the pain this conclusion provoked. The death of her

girlish illusions, taking place at much too early an age, made her stand-offish with

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suitors, somewhat calculating, and eventually she became indifferent, an indifference that

hid the slow ache of defeat.

It was one thing to see such monetary truths so plainly, another to come to terms with

them.

Esther’s father, who initially had spearheaded a cautious approach concerning the

motivations of young men who tried to court Esther, became alarmed that Esther had

taken the lesson so to heart that she seemed bent on spinsterhood.

He knew his girl. Her coolness hid a passionate soul, much like his own, capable of joy,

risk, and great appetite. She deserved a man to match, a man like himself, even if it were

necessary to buy one.

So Father went shopping.

When Esther was 26 years old, Yancey brought a prospect home to supper one fine

summer evening in 1954. The reason for the young man’s presence was neither

explained nor did anyone inquire. It was assumed by all concerned that he was simply

another offering on the smorgasbord of Father’s unsubtle attempts to find something to

Esther’s liking.

Elaine had laid an elegant table on the long screened veranda. A slow ceiling fan stirred

the sluggish air, and cold lemonade sweated in its crystal jug set upon a brilliant white

tablecloth. The sun was on its way to the horizon, its light slanting through the big live

oak trees, but there was no coolness in the offing.

Nevertheless, Elaine looked her usual impeccable self in a long cotton dress that

managed to be both informal and dressy at once. Although Esther violently objected to

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the motives she knew had impelled Father to set up this little social event, she too was

well groomed in a dress of periwinkle blue that set off her attractive eyes.

The Mexican help stood at the ready, but Elaine insisted on overseeing every detail of

the food and drink. Her kitchen was well equipped, and she was a stickler. She ordered

ice chipped into the lemonade jug, picked fresh mint for the glasses, and checked on her

famous golden cornbread.

When Elaine took up local customs and recipes, she outdid the natives. She could

produce chiles rellenos that rivaled anything found in Central Mexico. María, her cook,

and María’s daughter Consuelo, learned from Elaine all the finer points of Mexican

cooking.

Father introduced Elaine and Esther to their guest in the parlor. While Father stood by

the chimney mantelpiece lighting his cigar, and Elaine excused herself to see to the food,

Esther sat tensely on the edge of a chair and discreetly looked over this specimen.

John Bainbridge seemed completely relaxed. And he was indeed a fine looking young

man, quite aware of the fact himself and sure of the effect he had on women.

He also seemed sure of the effect he had on men as well. He was hearty, well-spoken,

with a rich laugh and easy familiarity with Texas politics. He had dark, curly hair and

tanned skin, flashing black eyes, and straight white teeth. Esther thought he was

extraordinarily handsome, which meant that she automatically assumed he could not

possibly be interested in her, so she began to calm down and enjoy the conversation since

her father’s romantic plotting was doomed to failure.

“So, what do you do exactly, Mr. Bainbridge?” ventured Esther suddenly, cutting off

the political chit-chat in an instant.

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With a lack of surprise and a smoothness that revealed he had been intensely aware of

her presence in spite of her complete silence, John turned toward Esther and smiled.

“I work for a company that sells drilling equipment for oil exploration,” he replied.

“I see,” said Esther. “And how old are you, then?”

If anyone was taken aback by the directness of Esther’s approach, no one revealed it.

Before John could answer, Elaine entered to announce that supper was ready for them,

and the small party filed out to the veranda.

In spite of the heat, the cool lemonade, fine china, silver place settings, exquisite cold

avocado soup, tiny squares of cake-like cornbread, and the equally cool Elaine made for

an elegant and refined mood that offset the veritable seminar on cattle breeding into

which Yancey had launched unbidden. He seemed to place special emphasis on the

money to be made if one was astute about the business. Beef markets, Cattlemen’s

Association, foreign competition, offsetting droughts, it was all something Esther had

heard a thousand times before and she ceased listening almost immediately. A certain

heaviness invaded her, a desire for the ordeal to end, for the potential suitor to remove

himself quietly from the running and politely disappear forever. She felt unaccountably

fatigued by the heat, wanting only to slip into bed and read until tiredness overcame her.

Elaine’s face showed attentiveness to her husband’s conversation that, Esther was sure,

hid a mind conscientiously going over the laundry list for the following day.

As the salad of mandarin oranges was brought in by Consuelo, and Yancey interrupted

his lecture to call for a bourbon, John looked across the table directly at Esther.

“Twenty-seven,” he stated starkly.

“What?” Yancey looked around, perplexed.

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Elaine prepared to serve the salad dressing. She seemed not even to have registered the

odd statement.

“And how did you learn the business? Did you go to college? Are you an engineer?”

“’fraid not, Esther. My dad taught me. He couldn’t afford to send me to college after I

got out of high school. But I worked with him from the time I was fifteen.”

“And where are your parents now?”

“Dad died two years ago. Mom lives in Amarillo with two old-maid sisters, my Aunt

Delia and Aunt June. It’s been hard on her, but I help out all I can. She misses Dad so

much. Her health is not good either, it just seemed to go downhill after he died.”

“If you’ll forgive my saying so, you seem well-spoken for someone who hasn’t been to

college and has worked in such a rough business. Why would that be?”

“And if you’ll forgive me as well, you are mature far beyond your years, Miss Esther.

And well-spoken isn’t quite enough for you, is it?”

Yancey, realizing that the sparring taking place at his table was fraught with

possibilities, pretended to concern himself with adding the right amount of ice to his

bourbon and the perfect drizzle of dressing to his salad. Elaine, however, was showing

the slightest ruffle of discontent. There was something about the exchange that was

unfitting, unbecoming a young girl, yet she found herself unable to intervene. Esther had

suddenly placed herself beyond the pale of being the elegant, shy daughter and was

showing herself to be her father’s offspring.

Without a wrinkle in his style, John turned to Elaine and complimented her on the food.

The rest of the meal transpired in apparent comfort, punctuated by further exclamations

of delight from John as the salad was followed by thin, crispy flautas de pollo with a

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superb sauce spiced by toasted and molcajete-ground cumin and the merest touch of chile

chipotle. A cooling home-made lemon sorbet reduced the heat from the chile, and this

was followed by a delicate flan, baked to custardy perfection. Sherry and clove-scented

café de olla were served at the end of the veranda where the women sat in rocking chairs

and the men smoked cigars, all serenaded by the singing of crickets and the din of frogs

from the river.

Staring at the explosion of stars in the night sky, Esther realized she had no idea how

she had gotten through the food. She did not know if she had been insulted or

complimented, but she knew for sure that she no longer wanted to leave the small

gathering. No one had ever spoken to her like that, and she somehow sensed a complete

lack of fear on John’s part: he might want her money, Father might be wanting to buy her

this husband, but John was not going to grovel at the feet of his own ambition.

As a purchase, John had become very interesting indeed.

Esther slept very little that night. A breeze whispered through the bedroom window and

moved the lace curtain, its shadow a nebulous tremor cast by the full moon. What had he

meant, that business about well-spoken isn’t enough for you? She recognized that

somehow he had put her in her place, so to speak, but for the life of her, Esther did not

catch the meaning. Did he mean she was somehow beyond well-spoken, or did he mean

that any man for her had to be more than well-spoken to capture her attention?

With the years, Esther learned that much of what John said was for effect. He had an

unerring intuition for the seemingly dramatic remark, but if questioned about his

meaning, he would adopt a cryptic silence punctuated with one of his Mona Lisa smiles

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that, in Esther’s view, hid the fact that he himself didn’t really know what he meant.

Also with the years, the smile seemed more like a smirk to Esther. It covered an

intellectual and emotional shallowness she grew to abhor.

But that night she could not get him out of her mind. Sleep, leaning in to brush against

her for a moment or two, fled. The house was quiet as the eastern horizon began to grow

pink. Only the aroma of coffee, very faint, revealed that the Mexican cook was

beginning preparations for breakfast. Esther slipped a filmy robe over her nightgown and

descended to the breakfast nook.

“Buenos días, María,” she greeted the cook.. “Is my mother up yet?”

“Of course not, señorita, it is much too early. What do I make you for breakfast?”

“Nothing but toast, María, no coffee either. Just orange juice. Is my father still asleep

too?”

“I think, yes,” replied María with a certain reserve. Esther immediately knew that he

had been out all night With the pretext of returning John Bainbridge to Cormorant Hill’s

miniscule, old-fashioned hotel, he had no doubt gone across the river for the rest of the

night.

This meant that he would show up around noon, and Esther would have to wait for

hours before finding out more about her young man. That’s how she thought of him:

hers. If he was to be had at a price, Esther wanted him. She was a bit taken aback to find

herself thinking in those terms, but for the first time she realized her father’s power could

be used to get her what she really wanted.

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Esther was sitting on the front porch swing in spite of the heat when Yancey’s green

Buick crunched up the circular gravel drive and came to a halt.

“What are you doing there, young lady?” Her father’s hearty voice revealed real

pleasure at seeing her. And he seemed as refreshed as if he had slept all night long.

“Come sit here with me a while, Father, I want to ask you something.”

“That suits me just fine. Let’s get some cold lemonade out here first.”

He shouted for María to bring lemonade, then sat next to Esther on the swing, moving it

gently to and fro with a booted foot. “What’s on your mind?”

“Just a minute, wait until María leaves the lemonade.”

After María had placed a tray laden with iced glasses and a jug of lemonade on a

wicker table by the swing, Esther waited until she returned to the house before speaking.

“When is this John Bainbridge going back to…well, wherever he came from?”

Yancey served himself lemonade and drained his glass in big gulps before replying.

“I guess that depends on you. I met him in San Antone but he’s working around Waco.

I might offer him a job at the ranch if there’s any reason for him to stick around.”

“There’s something else I want to ask you. Do you have a mistress across the river?”

It was difficult to shock a man as earthy as Yancey, but Esther had managed to do it.

“I don’t know what’s come over you since last night, young lady, but you are getting to

be a darned sight too direct. I’m not saying I object, exactly, but you have to understand

that whatever difficulties your mother and I may have had during our marriage is no

concern to anyone but us. We may have our disagreements, but we are still man and wife

and intend to stay that way. Whatever you think you know about us or about me is

wrong and just a bunch of gossip by people who don’t have anything else to do.”

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“I know you didn’t come home last night. I know there have been lots of times you

don’t come home. And no one has said anything to me. Heaven forbid anyone should

actually say anything around here. But I hear what people say about other men, and I can

tell you right now, I won’t stand for the man I marry going across the river.”

“So that’s what this is all about. Listen, Esther, you are going to come into a chunk of

money some day, and as long as I am around you can bet your booties anyone you marry

is going to toe the line. No one, and I do mean no one, is going to make my girl

unhappy.”

“Good,” said Esther, standing up and brushing at the wrinkles in her sleeveless cotton

dress, “then offer John Bainbridge a job.”

Esther opened the screen door and entered the cool dark of the house.

Cormorant Hill Town Hall sat in isolated splendor in the center of Town Square,

surrounded by a fine stand of palm trees that rustled soothingly in the slightest breeze but

did nothing to tame the Texas summer sun. A sweep of buffalo grass, kept under control

by Sam Wilding and his hand mower, completed the landscaping.

The building itself was a two-story, square structure much too large for what the town

needed, and thus it housed not just the town administrative offices but the sheriff’s office,

the tiny public library, the jail, a law firm composed of the town’s only two lawyers, and

the post office. The structure was rescued from complete indifference by a crenellated

flourish along the edge of the roof and by its attractive façade of thin sheets of local

stone.

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Across the street on the South side of the square, a small park shaded by pecan trees and

live oaks gently sloped down to an impenetrable stand of reeds that impeded access to the

river. The local cattlemen’s association had donated several stone benches to the park,

and it was a popular picnic ground, site of school fairs, and trysting spot for teenagers.

Sam Wilding himself served the city in Town Hall as night watchman, cleaning man,

gardener, and general handyman. He was in his late forties and had lost a leg below the

knee from an infected wound brought about by a dog bite. He did well on a wooden

replacement, had energy and pride in his work, and had killed the dog that bit him. He

had a small room in the basement, an arrangement that worked out to everyone’s

satisfaction. Even Sheriff Stromberg relied on him to man the desk when he and his two

deputies all had to be out of the office at the same time.

On three sides of Town Square, the street was lined with a string of small businesses

that faced Town Hall, among them the grocery store with its creaky wooden floor and

rich aromas of cinnamon and licorice. Myrna Tijerina’s café served food that people

would drive from other towns to eat; her specialty was machacado with huevo, served

with hot, home-made flour tortillas, pinto beans cooked with bacon and jalapeño chiles,

and a little pot of tomato-and-chile sauce that the local people said ought to come with a

warning label and the telephone number of the fire house. Myrna herself was a big,

maternal woman with dark skin and a long braid down her back. She loved cooking and

adored eating, and she felt the whole world needed to be fed good Mexican dishes.

Bustling among the tables and riding herd over an assistant cook and her young daughter

Silvia who functioned as waitress, she was as much a part of the fun of eating at the café

as the food itself.

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The Cormorant Hill Ladies’ Quilting Club had a small store where the women met to

quilt and to show their wares, although most of the quilts were destined for children,

grandchildren, and other relatives. This was a center of local gossip and source of some

of the bizarre twists on events that spread around town like wildfire, at least when

anything qualifying as an event came along.

The advent of John Bainbridge was definitely one such affair. Yancey Hutton installed

him in the Hutton Cattle Company office, located across the street from the main

entrance to Town Hall, in a front corner of the Cormorant Hill Hotel. The rather steep

rent from the office helped keep the tiny hotel in business.

The office was unnecessary in reality since the books were kept by an accountant in

San Antonio and the ranch was run by Yancey himself with the help of a long-time

employee who served as ranch administrator. Tall, thin, taciturn, and sun-cured, Bob

Jameson was a silent and unconditionally loyal cowboy who was a perfect autocratic

stand-in for Yancey himself; the generous and efficient coterie of hired people on

Yancey’s ranch made John Bainbridge’s presence an immediate source of speculation.

Why was he there, and what was he doing?

It took Bainbridge less than an hour to realize that his hefty salary, his place at the

office, and the duties with which he was charged implied no responsibility whatsoever

except that of suitor. The office, which served Yancey as somewhere to go to get out of

the house when he was not at the ranch, became Bainbridge’s departure point in the

charming of the townsfolk and in setting up his image as an important cog in the Hutton

Cattle Company machinery. The lack of responsibility was just fine with him; he felt he

had at last come into his own, a position worthy of his good looks and social talents.

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He was treated with respect and quiet courtesy by those he encountered over the next

several days, and indeed for years afterward. Sheriff Stromberg, a hefty, mustached man

resembling an overweight John Wayne, who went to the point and minced no words,

adorned always with a Stetson and a sidearm except when in church, summed up the

general opinion over coffee and apple pie with Deputy Anders at Myrna’s café:

“A drone. He’s been hired to mate with that gal Esther. This aint gonna end well, you

mark my words. He’s just too full of himself to fit in his skin, by God. Boys that pretty,

they’re a danged sight worse than a beautiful woman. ‘Specially since he’s likely to end

up with one hell of a lot of money if he plays his cards right. ‘Course,” said Stromberg,

finishing his pie and his scathing summation together, “that kind never does.”

The perfectly choreographed wooing of Esther proceeded effortlessly, since both parties

directly involved knew how to play that particular social game. Up to a point, of course.

What Esther had missed as a teenager she now had in abundance, and she was poorly

equipped to deal with it. There was no sweaty-handed, clumsy fumbling on a porch

swing or in the balcony section of a movie theater. There was a sexual expertise, at least

in the mechanical sense, that in many ways would be Esther’s undoing.

In order to assure his position, John relied on more than charm in Esther’s case,

although he did extend himself considerably in that area. He managed to finish off a

month-long crescendo of expertly applied kisses, intimate caresses, and loving words by

bedding Esther on the office couch one afternoon, pulling off her panties and taking her

virginity with a minimum of pain and considerable pleasure on her part, leaving her

breathless and shaking, in shock at her lack of control, and hungry for a renewal of totally

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new physiological sensations that had culminated in a very satisfactory orgasm, her first

intimation that such a thing existed.

If there was something disquieting in the fact that John rolled off her and left her to pull

on her panties with trembling hands while he lit up one of the slim cigars he had come to

prefer, Esther was too emotionally undone to pay attention. John escorted Esther home

and gallantly kissed her hand at the front door, leaving her to worry in agony if she might

become pregnant before the wedding could be arranged.

Esther had every intention of repeating this sexual encounter at the first opportunity.

Her mistake lay in believing that what she felt was love.

Even worse, for a while she thought that what John felt was love.

Within two months the Hutton family had arranged a tasteful wedding, not large but

sufficiently elegant. The tiny Protestant church was set aside one Saturday in October,

and on a splendid autumn day of brilliant blue Esther and John took their wedding vows.

Esther was radiant to the point of prettiness in a simple, expensive gown and a string of

spectacular pearls, her hair in a tasteful French twist. After the ceremony, the small

group of friends and business associates attended a garden reception under white trellises

covered in roses, where they enjoyed the finest champagne and an extraordinary lobster

and steak dinner.

John’s family was not in attendance. He said he had spoken to his mother and his aunts

to announce his intentions to wed, but Aunt June was not in good health and felt the trip

would be too much for her. His mother and Aunt Delia were too worried about June to

leave her alone, and his mother had been feeling unwell too because of the stress. In

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spite of this absence, John appeared to enjoy every moment of the festivities and

promised Esther he would take her to meet his family at the first opportunity.

Yancey had offered to convert one wing of the house into a private area for the

newlyweds so that they would have adequate living quarters. That was the excuse, at

least. Elaine seemed to go along with the idea with her usual aplomb, but Esther

suspected her father simply couldn’t bear to have her move out, especially now that

grandchildren would some day come along.

Esther agreed to the arrangement, although she could not have quite explained why it

made her uneasy to think of living away from the watchful and loving eye of her father.

With time, she would come to understand her reluctance.

She thought John might rebel, insisting that they find their own home, but he seemed

not only agreeable but even pleased with the plan. For a while, this was a relief to Esther.

She began her married life with little change in her routines. What she had once

despised as superficiality in her mother she now embraced with enthusiasm: she took care

with her choice of furnishings, color schemes, and all the small details that make up a

home. She enjoyed cooking in the small kitchen installed in their private wing, and she

would have enjoyed even more the chance to dine alone with John by candlelight, but

with disconcerting frequency they were both included in Elaine’s family dinner because

John always accepted the invitations. During these meals John would talk ranching with

Yancey, who never missed a chance to expound on his favorite subject, while Elaine

drifted into whatever inner world she inhabited and Esther waited impatiently for John to

take her to bed. John would glance at her from time to time, a sly sparkle in his eye, and

Esther would be unable to hide a conspiratorial smile that almost always caused John to

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cut off conversation with the excuse of tiredness. He would whisk Esther away and make

love to her while a fire in the bedroom grate cast a dancing light in her eyes, or beneath

the lazy circling of the ceiling fan, serenaded with cricket song.

A year went by and Esther had not become pregnant. Six months into the marriage,

Elaine asked Esther if she was “doing anything” to avoid pregnancy, although Esther

suspected that it was her father who really wanted to know. Esther did not want to see

the local doctor because she knew it was only a matter of time before the quilting ladies

got hold of information she wanted kept private, so Elaine got an appointment with a

specialist and drove her to San Antonio.

After questioning and an examination, the specialist said he found her to be healthy and

suggested that perhaps she should just relax and not worry about becoming pregnant She

needed to give the matter more time, he said. Things would sort themselves out, he said.

Esther knew in her heart that this was hogwash, but she remained silent. She was taken

aback to discover that some part of her did not desire a child although she didn’t

understand it, couldn’t explain it to herself, and felt guilty at the notion of disappointing

her father so badly.

Also, on the long drive back to Cormorant Hill, for the first time as an adult woman she

wondered aloud to Elaine why she was an only child.

This was no longer a question that could be evaded by the childish explanations which

had satisfied Esther when she was a little girl.

Elaine kept her eyes on the road but her discomfort was evident in her tight grip on the

steering wheel and a taut jaw.

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“Well, I never thought I was a very motherly kind of woman,” she said.

“But what about Father? He would have loved having a son, or another daughter.

Didn’t that matter?”

“Yes,” Elaine muttered vaguely, “he certainly wanted a larger family.”

“Well, was there something wrong with you? I mean, maybe I’m not pregnant because

I inherited some defect, some physical problem, something I have a right to know about.

What am I going to tell John? That I’m just fine? Or did you not have more children on

purpose, because you decided not to?”

“Wait a minute. There’s a gas station ahead and I want a Coke with ice.”

Elaine pulled into the station, parked, opened the car door and slid out.

“Do you want a Coke?”

“I’d like to know if you are going to answer my questions, that’s what I want,” replied

Esther.

Elaine got back into the car and slammed the door. She stared ahead as if she were

driving still.

“I am going to answer your questions, and you are never to mention this again. There is

nothing wrong with me, and you have inherited no defects, at least not from my side of

the family. Your father’s parents were also normal, it seems, because you have two

uncles, his brothers, that you have never known about for very good reasons. One of

them, your father’s younger brother, died of tuberculosis when he was a fairly young

man, not long after your grandparents died, in fact, and your father took over the ranch.

Your father also has an older brother, and the reason he never talks about him is because

he….he is a disreputable sort, never took an interest in the ranch and certainly never

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helped your father when the whole job fell to him. Your father, and by God this is rich,

has for all practical purposes simply written him off because he has lived for years in

Piedras Negras with a Mexican woman considerably younger than he, I think they even

have children.”

Elaine punctuated her astonishing remarks with a harsh and terrible laugh. Esther had

never seen her mother like this, bitter and filled with fury, and she thought she might

never had heard her say so much at one time about anything relevant. She sat stunned

and fascinated.

“As to why you are an only child, that is because after you were born your father and I

were no longer intimate.”

“Why?” stammered Esther.

“Why? Because your father has had mistresses galore across the river, which may be an

offense to my station in life, but it certainly has relieved me of any moral obligation to

perform my wifely duties.”

“Don’t you love him?” Esther almost pleaded for an answer she could stomach.

Elaine turned to look at her. Her voice softened. “I did for a while.”

She started up the car and drove back onto the highway. In silence Esther watched the

arid landscape slip by, the mesquites casting long shadows as the sun dipped toward the

west.

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3.

“John, aren’t you upset that I haven’t gotten pregnant?” Esther lay propped up on a

mound of feather pillows. She wore a filmy nightgown of delicate lavender, but even this

seemed too heavy in the summer heat. The French doors were open onto the veranda and

let in the nighttime sounds and a mild breeze. The ceiling fan whirred.

John looked at her reflection in the mirror as he preened, worried about how his suit fit.

“Oh, let’s give ourselves time. After all, the fun is in the trying, isn’t it?” He gave her a

smile of complicity as he smoothed his string tie.

“It’s been three and a half years, John, for God’s sake, that is more than enough time!”

Esther’s voice choked and tears gathered in her eyes.

John looked at her for a moment, then went to sit on the bed beside her.

“Aren’t we okay the way we are? I know Yancey’s disappointed,” mused John, “but if

we are both in good health, well, what’s to be done about it?”

“John, how do we know we are both healthy in that way? I mean, you haven’t agreed to

a check-up, and it could be done in San Antonio in complete privacy. Why don’t we do

that? We could shop, take in a movie or even go to a concert.” Esther was sickeningly

aware that these few lures held no real appeal for John. He spent a lot on his own clothes

but preferred to shop alone, and the idea that a big-city concert was attractive to him was

ludicrous.

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John stood up and continued to attend to his appearance. “There is nothing wrong with

me,” he replied coldly, running a comb through his hair, “and there are lots of things

worth doing that don’t include children.”

“My father wants grandchildren,” said Esther, knowing as soon as the words left her

mouth that she had made a mistake. In their short married life, Esther had carefully

avoided talking about where the real power lay in the family. Whether she hoped it

might become unimportant with time, or whether she feared saying out loud one of those

facts of life that once uttered could never be retrieved, she was not sure.

“Just think,” she hurried on, trying to remedy the situation, “how your mother would

love to have grandchildren. We could take the opportunity to visit her and your aunts to

tell them the good news.” Bad to worse, thought Esther, bad to worse. She had added

another sore point. She and John had not been to see his mother, nor had his mother

come to Cormorant Hill. Elaine had discreetly ceased to ask about John’s mother except

in the most correct of terms, but Esther had persisted. John made excuses, mostly having

to do with his mother’s delicate health. The matter did not ring true, and Esther realized

that here was yet another topic that had to be avoided in order to pretend that all was

well.

John turned to her. In two strides he was at the bed and pinned Esther’s shoulders into

the mound of pillows.

“You got what you paid for,” he whispered hoarsely, “do you want me to fuck you now?

Spread your legs, honey.”

Esther felt like she had been struck. Even the crudest facts in her small world were

dressed in acceptable language. She stared up at John with wide eyes, tears starting in

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them again, and she felt afraid of him. Esther had felt many things—frustration,

resignation, sadness, lust, anger, but she very rarely had occasion to be frightened. Her

stomach tightened and churned with anguish.

Just as suddenly, John released her and walked toward the door of their bedroom.

“Where are you going?” Esther managed to speak although her voice shook.

“I have things to do.” John softly closed the bedroom door behind him. She heard him

start up the Buick he had bought them soon after the wedding, following Yancey’s

advice. She heard him drive away down the street as the night air brought in the scent of

jasmine and the single song of a lone night bird.

Esther got out of bed. She saw herself in the mirror, draped in her thin negligee, her body

as evident as if she had been nude, and she was repulsed. Shame overcame her in waves,

as if she had been raped. She went to the closet and took out a pair of light slacks and a

sleeveless blouse. Pulling open a drawer in the large dresser, she shoved aside delicate

lace panties and matching bras and chose plain white cotton garments, leftovers from her

unmarried state. After dressing, she shoved her feet into sandals and walked down the

hall into the living room, searching for her father.

The living room was dark, but a light shone under the door to her father’s study. She

knocked softly.

“Come on in, whoever you are.” Esther opened the door and peeked in.

“Are you busy?” she asked.

“Never too busy for you, hon! What’s up? Come on in here.”

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Esther was pale but in control. This fact gave her pause. She felt ashamed, used,

betrayed, as if the very quiet, very tacit arrangement that constituted her marriage had

finally been made visible because one of the parties had violated the agreement. What

surprised her was the fact that disappointment was oddly absent in the array of emotions

that swirled within her. Perhaps it was because John’s shallow opinions, his flair for the

dramatic yet empty gesture, his façade of busyness, had removed any illusions Esther

may have had concerning his worth as a man, aside from his sexual expertise.

Too stunned to speak as these thoughts sped through her mind, she smiled wanly and

approached her father, giving him a kiss on the forehead as he sat looking at her, mild

perplexity shadowing his features. Esther took a book from the laden shelves and sat

down on the leather couch.

Yancey turned back to the document on his desk, sensing that the silence would be

broken when Esther so desired. Esther pretended to read. She went over and over the

events of the evening, and slowly a sensation of clarity of vision dawned, a feeling both

poignant and exciting. She realized that the pain of seeing her marriage in all its pathetic

pretense released her from having to pretend as well. It no longer mattered that she

seemed unable to have a child; a child was part of the charade. Esther felt no deep-seated

need to be a mother, only a desire to fulfill her part of the spurious bargain, a bargain

shared by her father as much as anyone else. How could John be faulted? He had done

his part in the play to perfection. Like her father’s prized bulls, John had serviced her

often and well. In his own way, he had been less hypocritical than both Yancey and

Esther. John, at least, knew what his role was.

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Another wave of shock rolled over her when she realized that her father, too, must have

seen the crude outlines of the arrangement. No wonder he could be so calm with the

reality of John’s total uselessness, his foolish visits to the office, his worthless opinions,

his empty social polish. And no wonder John was never required at the ranch, not even

for appearance’s sake. It was quite probable that Yancey felt no need whatsoever to

sugar-coat the reasons for buying Esther a husband.

How was it possible she had been so self-deceived! Bit by bit, the costume of her

marriage had been frayed, torn, and finally ripped away tonight. The terrible thing was

that she was the only one who thought it existed. She felt a shame that outdid anything

John could have said or done, more even than if he had actually raped her as he pinned

her to the bed.

Her father had participated in this shame, and she was repelled. A quiet anger began to

burn in her; she had been treated no differently than her mother. She, who thought she

was the privileged woman in her father’s life, found herself as much an article of image

and pretense as her mother, except that her mother had the good sense to know what was

happening.

I am the only fool here, thought Esther. My father has betrayed me just like he betrayed

my mother. I simply didn’t have the brains to recognize it.

She looked up at Yancey, who still bent over his desk. For the first time, Esther realized

he looked tired. Not the tiredness of overwork, a different kind of fatigue. He seemed to

have lost a bit of weight. His face appeared slightly gray beneath the weather-beaten

skin. In an instant her rage died away. He’s getting old, she thought. And yet he isn’t

old at all. Something in him is running down. She realized that in the last few months

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the laugh was less hearty, the trips to San Antonio fewer. It had been months, she was

not sure how many, since he had not come home at night. A small chill caused her to

shiver slightly. Something was wrong, and she had been too concerned about her own

problems, too caught up in the slow erosion of her image of John, to notice.

Yancey looked up and found her staring at him. Something in her expression grabbed

his attention, and at the same time each of them asked, “What’s wrong?”

Yancey laughed. “You first,” he said.

At that moment, Esther came to a decision. She didn’t know how she would do it yet,

but it was time for her to solve her own problems. Only an eternal child, a permanent

under-aged girl, living as she had, under the wing of her father, in her father’s home,

eating her father’s food, would burden him with the knowledge that she too knew her

marriage was a sham. Perhaps the only thing that gave him any pleasure was the notion

that his daughter was happy, no matter how shallow or useless her husband had turned

out to be. Maybe his apparent lack of pretense wasn’t that at all—maybe he was trying

as hard as he could to create the fiction that all was well in order not to disturb his

daughter’s comfort. Esther couldn’t know what the answers to her doubts might be, but

she came to the conclusion on the spot that she would deal with this final blow of

disillusionment on her own. Something like a plan flashed through her mind.

“You seem very tired lately,” she commented. “Is everything all right?”

“Oh, I think so. Don’t you worry about it. I’ll be getting my annual check-up next

week, and at my age maybe I need a vitamin or two. Want to go to San Antone with me

when I see the doc?”

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“Actually, I wanted to go tomorrow. I need new clothes and the fall line is coming

out…”

“Good Lord, fall clothes already and it’s the middle of summer! Don’t say another

word. You and your mother go on ahead, she might enjoy the trip too. Or are you

heading up there with John?”

“No, well, I sort of wanted to go on my own. You know how bored John gets with my

shopping, and Mother…well, she gets kind of obsessive about the whole thing and drags

me to every expensive store in town. I’ll take our car, John can get a ride with you if he

needs to go anywhere.”

“Oh.” Yancey seemed surprised. It was unusual for Esther to undertake such an outing

on her own, but he knew she was a more than competent driver. “Well, whatever you

say. Here, let me give you some extra spending money.” Yancey produced his wallet

and counted out several bills.

“Father, you pay John more than enough, I don’t need extra cash.”

“Indulge me, hon, you know I like to spend money on you.”

“Yes,” replied Esther dryly, “that I know.”

Something in her tone caused Yancey to glance at her sharply, but Esther was folding

the bills and slipping them into her slacks pocket. She got up, replaced the book she had

pretended to read, kissed her father again on the forehead and quickly left the study.

Back in her bedroom, she went to her closet and stared at her clothes. What kind of

attire was appropriate for what she had in mind? She had no idea. It wasn’t as if her

mother had provided her with a dress code for something so outside her normal

experience as what Esther was planning.

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Esther decided on a summer dress with a matching toreador jacket, high heels, and

surely as a result of a purely gut-reaction, white summer gloves. Coward, she accused

herself, afraid to get your hands dirty? She stood undecided for a moment, then put the

gloves back in their drawer.

She gathered the clothes, some lipstick and mascara, a toothbrush, a gown, and her

brush and comb. She placed the gown and toilet articles in a small overnight case stored

on the closet shelf. She made sure she had plenty of cash in her purse along with her

checkbook. She hoped she would not have to write a check, but if she did, she would

make it out to cash so that no record was left of how she planned to spend the money.

Esther changed into a cotton gown and put the overnight case under the bed so it would

not be visible. Not that she thought John would notice it in the least, but her ability to

read what John would or would not do had been severely undermined. She had seen a

side of him she hoped to avoid carefully in the future.

In spite of the night’s anxiety-ridden events, having a real plan relaxed Esther enough so

that she fell asleep. At some point during the early morning hours, John opened the

bedroom door and came in. He crept to his side of the bed without turning on a light, sat

down, and proceeded to take off his clothes. He seemed to be battling with that peculiar

clumsiness typical of someone trying to be careful but too tipsy to manage it. Esther

woke up the moment she heard the car crunch up the driveway. She pretended to be

asleep but took note of the fact that John’s trousers, and thus the car keys, had been

dumped carelessly on the floor.

It seemed an eternity before John’s breathing revealed that he was asleep, though Esther

felt sure it was no more than five minutes at most. She moved carefully as she climbed

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out of bed. Moonlight lit the window and she could see well enough to locate her clothes

draped over a wicker chair. She pulled the overnight case from under the bed, knocking

her elbow against her night stand and rattling the lamp that stood on it. She froze,

crouched on the floor, her heart beating rapidly as pain shot through her funny bone. The

phrase “funny bone” struck her as unbearably comical, and she realized that she was

making a noise in her throat in an effort not to laugh hysterically.

After a few seconds it was evident that nothing short of a tornado would move John.

Esther retrieved his trousers, extracted the keys from a pocket, and took her things into

the hall, carefully closing the bedroom door.

It was odd creeping around her own house at night like a criminal. Moonlight

illuminated parts of the house, and she noticed for the first time the areas in the hall and

living room where the floor creaked. In the absolute stillness of the sleeping household,

with only the sounds of crickets and frogs heard dimly from an open window somewhere,

the house seemed foreign, subtly altered, an imitation of her home overlaid with a strange

and sinister mood. Esther went into her father’s study, planning to rest on the couch there

until she could safely leave the house, only to discover with a thrill of anxiety that she

had left her purse in the bedroom.

All right, girl, she told herself, snap out of it. Your nerves are about to come undone.

It’s time to be a real grown-up, you silly, pampered, useless woman.

With an internal dialogue that acted as a slap in the face, Esther walked back down the

hall, opened her bedroom door, walked over to the dresser where she retrieved her purse,

and abandoned the room again as if it were broad daylight and the entire household up

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and about its usual activities. Good, she told herself, that’s better. This is your home,

one word from you and John is out on his ear. Take charge of yourself.

Back in the study, Esther dozed until the grandfather clock struck six. She dressed,

stuffing her used gown into her purse, and went outside. Placing her overnight case in

the passenger seat, she started up the Buick and rolled away down the driveway. The

streets were empty but a few cars were already parked in front of Myrna’s brightly lit

café as Esther drove through downtown and took the road that would lead to the highway

and San Antonio. The occasional streetlights left puddles of yellow illumination, then

disappeared behind her as she drove into the dark countryside.

She breathed in the early morning air through the open window, redolent with grass, the

river, and summertime. The faintest grayness, almost invisible, began to tinge the eastern

horizon. The wind was fresh, the car smoothly humming down the country road, the

headlights sweeping the mesquites with each curve. For the first time in her life, Esther

felt free.

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4.

Two hours later, beneath an early Texas sky that was already blistering, Esther stopped

at a small café outside San Antonio and sat at the counter between two big cowboys and

drank strong coffee. Her hubris was dampened: she had no idea how to go about what

she intended to do. Thinking she had been so in control of her emotions, she had left the

house without writing even a small note for her mother to explain where she was. Some

control, she thought. A really independent woman. Hot damn.

The café was lively with truck drivers and morning travelers. The good-natured woman

behind the counter sang out the orders and served her customers with easy familiarity.

Her dyed blond hair was piled on top of her head, her make-up was applied with a rather

liberal hand, but her trim figure was set off by the pink and white uniform she wore. She

seemed to know many of the truckers and exchanged a pleasant banter with them. The air

was awash with the aromas of good coffee and frying ham steaks.

A nametag identified her as Shirley.

The woman refilled Esther’s cup and gave her a big smile. “Want anything to eat,

hon?”

Esther decided to have toast. She needed something to settle her nervous stomach, and

coffee was making the situation worse. She tried desperately to work up the courage to

ask this woman something.

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Nobody knows you here, she thought, so whatever this woman thinks about me doesn’t

matter. She will never see me again.

“Could I change that order to biscuits?” inquired Esther as Shirley zipped past.

“Sure thing, hon, and you won’t be sorry either, we make the best biscuits in the

county.”

Soon Shirley set a plate before Esther, and its four high, flaky buttermilk biscuits made

her realize she really was hungry. Eating would give her time to think about how to

proceed. She broke open a hot biscuit and buttered it.

The next time Shirley approached to see if “everything all right, hon?”, Esther was

ready.

“I wonder if you could give me some information.” She tried to keep her voice low, but

the surrounding noise of conversation and clashing crockery was against her.

“If I can, I surely will, dear,” replied Shirley.

“Do you have any idea how one goes about hiring a private detective?”

Esther expected a reaction of surprise, but Shirley just nodded knowingly. “Man

trouble, huh?”

Esther could feel herself blushing. She was stunned to have a total stranger go straight

to the heart of the matter, but she also had the dawning realization that most people had

lived more varied, more complicated lives than her own. She felt foolish because of her

innocence and also relieved that no one had shouted “Stop the presses!” at her request.

Each step I take, she thought, shows me how little I know. It was a situation she was

determined to remedy.

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“If I were you, I’d look in the San Antone phone book. That’s the only place around

here big enough to have that kinda service, hon. I believe,” she added dryly, “you’ll find

plenty to chose from.” She gave Esther a pat on the hand and moved off to refill coffee

cups.

A while later, once more in her car and on the road, Esther found herself considering the

practical aspects of finding a detective. She decided to check into the Menger hotel

before doing anything concrete; she needed the privacy of a room and some quiet in order

to figure out exactly what she was going to ask of a detective, and how. Though

daunting, the experience was exciting at the same time. For once, Esther had taken the

reins of her life into her own hands, and she was liking the sensation it gave her.

Esther had stayed at the Menger many times, both with her mother and father, and her

parents were unfazed by the hotel’s reputation as a hang-out for some rather notable

ghosts, Teddy Roosevelt among them. “Ridiculous,” was how her mother summed it up.

“Somebody’s been eatin’ locoweed,” was her father’s take. People had claimed to see a

number of apparitions infesting the hotel, but all Esther was interested in was the good

service and refined atmosphere.

She parked her car in the hotel parking area and went to reception to check in. She

requested a room on the second floor, since she preferred using the stairs. Within

minutes she was tipping the bellboy, who carried her insignificant overnight bag. Closing

the door to her room, she was ready to begin pouring over the yellow pages helpfully

provided with the room’s telephone.

Esther kicked off her high heels and sat on the bed. Her first decision was that the

detective would have to at least speak Spanish. It would be even better if she could find a

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Mexican American. How else would he be able to procure information on the Mexican

side of the border, in Ciudad Meseta? Esther had no doubt at all that it would indeed be

necessary to cross the river if she was to know what John did with his time. Especially

those times at night when John claimed he had pressing business to take care of.

She felt slightly nauseated at the idea of how easily she had helped keep up the fiction

of her marriage, the questions she didn’t ask, the clues and hints she refused to

contemplate, all within the safe, comforting cocoon of her parents’ home, a pretend

marriage just as she had been a pretend adult, a pretend wife. A baby would have

changed that sooner rather than later, but even such a dose of reality as a child had been

denied her.

No longer, thought Esther, no longer. She took up the phone book.

She found a name, Albert Herrera. A Mexican American for sure. She dialed the

number listed by his name—Albert Herrera, private detective, absolute discretion. Her

heart was beating as if she had run up several flights of stairs.

“Herrera here.” His voice was low and calm. What had she expected? A stereotypical

Mike Hammer, a gravelly voice and vocal chords destroyed by too much tobacco?

“Ah, Mr. Herrera, I wonder if I could speak to you about hiring your services.”

“Of course. And you are….?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Mr. Herrera, this is a bit new for me. In fact,” said Esther, coming

clean, “I’m a little nervous. My name is Mrs. Bainbridge.”

“Don’t worry, Mrs. Bainbridge, lots of people are nervous about hiring a detective.

Why don’t we meet and discuss your problem? Where are you? You could come to my

office if you’re more comfortable with that.”

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“Well, I’m from out of town, and I’m at the Menger Hotel at the moment. Where is

your office?”

“Tell you what, Mrs. Bainbridge, you might feel better talking to me if we meet at a

neutral place, so to speak. My office isn’t far from your hotel, but two blocks south on

your side of the street is a decent café and lunch counter, the Meridian, the shoppers like

to go there. If it’s all right with you, let’s meet there at three-thirty this afternoon. The

place won’t be crowded, and it’s more relaxing than an office. What do you say?”

“Yes, I like that idea,” replied Esther. “How will I know you?”

“Tell me what you look like and I’ll find you.”

“I’ll be wearing a light blue summer dress with a white toreador jacket.”

“Fine. Till three-thirty then.”

Esther hung up and went weak with relief. God only knew what she thought this phone

encounter would be like, but Mr. Herrera seemed civilized, sensitive to her nervousness,

and yet to the point. His kind voice with the slight Mexican American lilt made her feel

confident There was nothing to do now but wait until the afternoon. She suddenly felt

very tired and hungry. She ordered a sandwich and a Coke from room service.

She realized she had not even brought a book to read. When her food came, she paid the

bill in cash, ate, then lay down for a nap.

When Esther woke up, she saw with a shock that it was almost three o’clock. She felt

drugged with too much sleep. She splashed water on her face in the bathroom and ran a

brush through her hair, catching it up in back in a soft twist. She grabbed up her purse

and left the room, heading for the stairs. On a whim she inquired about messages at the

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front desk, but there were none. Of course not. Her parents knew she would be fine, and

John couldn’t have cared less what she did.

Esther walked the two blocks to the café. The red and white décor, café curtains, and

tea table piled high with delicate pastries made for a comforting atmosphere. She chose a

booth close enough to the door so that she was visible and ordered coffee.

At three-thirty sharp, a man entered the café. He was short, appeared to be in his mid-

forties, and had the dark skin of a Mexican American. He looked like anything except a

private detective, thought Esther, but then what do I know how a detective should look?

He spotted Esther and came toward her. He shook her hand firmly.

“Mrs. Bainbridge?”

“Yes, please sit down, Mr. Herrera.”

“I see you speak Spanish, you pronounce my name correctly,” remarked Herrera.

“I grew up on the border, in Cormorant Hill. I always loved Spanish.”

Herrera had gentle brown eyes and the unlined face typical of so many Mexicans. He

was clean-shaven, and he had avoided the overweight also typical of Mexican Americans.

He was stocky but appeared strong and solid. In his suit and tie, he could have been the

owner of any small business. He was, in brief, unremarkable.

A waitress came to the booth and Herrera ordered coffee. Esther began to say

something, but Herrera raised his hand, palm toward her, indicating that she should not

speak. He sat patiently until his coffee was placed on the table.

“Okay, we’ll be left alone now for a bit, tell me what the trouble seems to be,” he stated.

Esther took a deep breath.

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“I’d like for you to come to Cormorant Hill and…well…I want you to follow my

husband. I have some names written down too, people who are supposed to live in

Amarillo, and I’d like to know…I don’t know, I guess I really want to know if they exist

or not.”

“I see. Is there some reason in particular you phoned me, or did you try other people

first? Exactly how did you come across me?”

“I think my husband spends time across the border in Ciudad Meseta, and I wanted

someone who speaks Spanish and can blend in over there. I picked you out of the phone

book because you have a Mexican name. I assume you do speak Spanish,” asked Esther

in some alarm; she knew many Mexican Americans retained only tatters of the language.

Herrera smiled. “Yes, I do. This seems to be your first experience with this kind of

thing, so why don’t I tell you how I work?”

Relieved, Esther assented with a nod.

“I’ll check first on the people in Amarillo, which shouldn’t take too long. Then I’ll go

to Cormorant Hill and spend a week or so following your husband. You’ll get a written

report from me on his activities. If you need proof for divorce proceedings, I can supply

you with photos if he is cheating on you. I charge thirty dollars a day, and unless I run

into some kind of unexpected expense, that should cover everything. I’ll need three day’s

pay in advance. You decide how we will get in touch. I won’t be able to start

immediately, but two weeks from now I can be on the job. All I’ll need for the time

being is the name and address of these folks in Amarillo, and your husband’s addresses,

his home, where he works, anything else you think I need to know about him. If you

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don’t have a picture of him, describe him to me, tell me what car he drives, and where I

can take my own photo of him.”

Esther knew there were things she needed to be asking, but she was unable to do

anything but react.

“I haven’t thought yet about what I’m going to do with what you find out, I’d rather not

deal with that right now. This is very hard for me,” said Esther, and to her amazement

she found herself on the verge of tears. There was something kind and competent about

Herrera that cut through her defenses. The enormity of what she was doing, sitting in a

café with a strange man discussing the possibility of divorce proceedings and

compromising photos, hit her like a freight train. Her internal dialogue broke down, and

so did Esther.

As she fished a tissue from her purse and tried to stem the tide of tears, Herrera sat

quietly, watching her. Sobbing clients were a common event for him, but something

about this young woman moved him. Her clothes said she had money. She was not very

attractive except for her pretty blue eyes, but she had class. There was more to her,

though. She had bothered to learn Spanish, when so many border Anglos didn’t. He

wondered if she had made the mistake of marrying a no-good, some kind of sleazy

charmer, and he also wondered why her parents, if she still had them, didn’t warn her.

Her money was surely the issue in that kind of marriage. He doubted that she had her

money only from her husband, because in his experience, that kind of woman puts up

with a lot, too much, in order to stay married to a wealthy man. She certainly doesn’t

hire a detective to confirm her worst suspicions. She just lives with them. Esther was

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another matter all together. She was a woman who wanted to know the truth, no matter

how bad it was.

After a while Esther pulled herself together; she was horrified to think how she must

look, with red nose and swollen eyes. At least Herrera hadn’t made it worse by trying to

comfort her.

He pushed a small notebook over to her, turned to a clean page, and Esther wrote down

the names of John’s mother and aunts. She had no address for them—how in God’s

name had that small fact not hit her over the head time and again, at Christmas, for

instance? John had supposedly taken care of cards and gifts for his family. Nothing this

detective might find out would equal the dismal reality of her own self-deception.

She wrote her own address in the notebook.

“My husband’s name is John Bainbridge. We live in a wing of my parents’ house. He’s

tall, has black hair, dark eyes, he’s a good-looking man. He doesn’t really have a set

routine, but he drives a green Buick. I can write the license tag numbers if you need

them. When he goes to the office, it’s usually late in the morning. The easiest time to

find him is when he leaves the house, I guess.”

“Don’t worry, this information is plenty. How do you want us to get in touch?”

The question gave Esther pause. She didn’t want Herrera calling the house.

“I don’t know. Is there some way I can call you at your office?”

“I’ll be staying in Ciudad Meseta. I’ll phone my secretary, she’s always there during

business hours when I’m away on a job, and I’ll leave her the number of my hotel. Get

that number from her, and I’ll set a time when I will always plan to be in my room so that

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you can contact me when you need to. If I don’t hear from you, will it be all right to mail

you a letter telling you my report is ready? We can meet again here in town for that.”

“Yes, I think that’s okay. Just don’t put your return address on the letter. I know this

sounds silly,” added Esther, “sort of cloak and dagger, but I’ve never done this before.”

“It’ll do just fine.” Herrera was writing in his notebook. He closed it and slid it into his

inside coat pocket.

Esther handed over ninety dollars. Herrera asked her if she wanted a receipt, and she

decided she didn’t. She didn’t want anything, in fact, that was physical proof of what she

was doing. She realized that she had no idea if John ever looked through her purse or

dresser drawers, and she was certainly in no position to risk anything on a judgment call.

Her judgment had proven far too unreliable.

Herrera shook her hand again and left, leaving enough money on the table to pay for

both coffees. Esther added a tip and she walked back to the hotel. She suddenly wanted

to get rid of the whole affair, leave town, go home, pretend for a little while that

everything was back to normal, whatever that was.

Esther paid for her hotel room, offering no explanation for her decision not to remain

overnight. She again let a bellboy carry her overnight case, this time to her car. She

drove out of San Antonio and took the familiar road toward Cormorant Hill. Somehow it

had changed, all the familiarity gone and present at the same time, as if she saw the same

old landscape with new eyes.

Esther Bainbridge drove home. She realized she had not bought a single article of new

clothes.

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Another lie I’ll have to invent to cover up the first one, she thought. This is going to be

my future. Lies and more lies.

She laughed harshly. In other words, she thought, just like my past.

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5.

The following week and a half went by in a state of tension that included even the

weather. Black clouds roiled in the east each day, promising rain, but the muggy,

suffocating heat remained unbroken until a Wednesday afternoon when at last the longed-

for downpour, amidst crackling thunder, cooled Cormorant Hill.

Esther, who had decided that the simplest lie was the most effective, planned to tell her

parents and John that she had felt ill and wanted to return home rather than remain in San

Antonio to shop. She was taken aback to notice that Elaine, seemingly her usual cool,

efficient self, nevertheless asked nothing, showed no desire to see what Esther had

bought, and seemed more reserved than usual—always impeccably polite, but somehow

absent.

Yancey had given Esther a welcoming hug, hoped she had a good trip, and seemed to

have lost track of the time—he didn’t register the fact that Esther had left the very

morning of the day she arrived home.

For her part, Esther was in a state of mind so foreign that she had a difficult time

defining it. It seemed to be a combination of anxiety and excitement. She went through

the motions of her day on automatic, but some of the changes she made were momentous,

if anyone had noticed them or cared.

Esther insisted that she and John dine each evening with her parents; no more gentle

pressure to have the occasional private meal in their wing of the house. If John chose to

chatter on into the evening with Yancey, all the better. Esther viewed John with an

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exhausting combination of pain, distaste and self-loathing. Her desire for him had

vanished, murdered by the fleeting glimpse of what he could be. Her beautiful, filmy

nightclothes gave way to simple cotton gowns that revealed nothing of her body. Books

were piled on her nightstand, and she would often read into the night. She paid no mind

to whether John stayed home or left during the evenings.

Something of the situation seemed to seep through his self-involved cloud of

contentment—that was how Esther saw him now, confident, shallow, oblivious, a man

who felt he had found his very comfortable place in the sun. He seems to wander through

life preening, about as useful as a peacock, thought Esther angrily. I guess he thinks he

put me in my place. We’ll see about that.

An intimation that he had stepped over a line made John especially courteous to Esther.

Late Wednesday night, after the rain had washed Cormorant Hill clean of heat, Esther

threw open the veranda doors and breathed in the night air, listening to the din of

hundreds of frogs near the river. The tail-end of the storm still shed a few drops, as if the

rain were reluctant to leave. The fragrance of star jasmine floated on the breeze, and the

sound of rain dripping from the live oaks was profoundly relaxing.

She got into bed and took up a book. John moved restlessly around the bedroom,

watching her.

“What are you reading, hon?”

“Oh, just a biography of one of the English kings.” Esther knew John was clueless

about history.

“You okay?”

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Esther lowered her book and looked at John, who had come to rest in the wicker chair.

“Of course I’m okay. Why are you asking?” She was genuinely curious. Had he

actually noticed a change in her?

“You seem…oh, I don’t know. I’m sure you have a good reason, it’s just that you…

well, you’ve been stand-offish.”

Before she could say anything, he continued.

“I’m not saying you don’t have good cause, either, I know I was a boor the other night,

sometimes work pressures build up.”

“John, are you trying to apologize for slamming me onto the bed and offering to fuck

me?” Esther found herself shocked by her own words, but there was a part of her taking

over that she was coming to admire.

John was visibly disconcerted, and he got up to sit on his side of their bed.

“Yes, I guess I am. It was the wrong thing to say, I see that now. Esther, I’m as upset as

you are about your not getting pregnant, but I’m with you through thick and thin.”

“That is generous, John. Your sense of self-preservation is flawless.” Watch it, Esther

thought, be careful. You don’t know anything about this person you are becoming.

Somewhere down the road there is going to be a price to pay, and it might be a very short

road. You were wrong about John once, you might be wrong again. Let’s face it, you

don’t know anything at all.

“Listen, John, I’m sorry I said that. It was unkind, and anything that’s wrong here is as

much my fault as yours. You don’t know how much I’d like to believe you.” Esther

began to feel like a stranger living in a familiar body—with a thrill of anguish, she

realized she had spoken the absolute truth.

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“God, Esther,” said John, getting up and pacing again, “I know I’ve done things wrong

more than once. I’ve been ashamed of my family and I’ve kept them away because we’re

just ordinary folks, we don’t know how to set a fancy table or make a home like this one.

I’ve been afraid you people would look down on them, and me, think we’re just a

common sort. Yes, I know that sounds silly.” With a gesture, John stopped Esther’s

attempt to protest. “I’ll make it up, to them and to you too, as soon as I can. I promise,

Esther.”

Esther was appalled. She rose from the bed and embraced John. This is incredible, she

thought. There is something wrong with me, some kind of wealth-induced suspicion of

every human being on the face of the earth. No wonder John is the way he is. Little

formal education, working in the oil fields his whole youth, and heaven alone knows

what kind of mother and aunts he has. Were they work-toughened old women, worn out

and used up? Were they dirt poor? How could she have been so unutterably insensitive,

whining over her petty problems, worried about pleasing her father, when the whole time

John had been trying to fit into a family that held him in gentle contempt? Her own

father had set John up in a job that was a sham instead of teaching him something

authentically useful. How had John lived with that insult day in and day out?

When will this ever stop? thought Esther. Am I ever going to get to the bottom of what

my marriage is about? Every time I look at John and myself, I see different people. This

is enough to drive a person mad.

John lifted her face to his and kissed her. He pulled off her chaste cotton gown over her

head and took her to bed.

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Esther woke in the middle of the night with a jolt. She had hired a detective to follow

John. The enormity of what she had done hit her. If John discovered he was being

followed, spied on, this would be an offense no one could forgive. What if Herrera was

careless, what if John spotted him? What did she know about detectives? She had only

hired this man because there seemed to be something kind in him, but did kindness make

for skill? Esther had made a huge mistake. One more for the books, she thought.

Still, Esther had time to cancel the undertaking; Herrera should be busy for another

three or four days before coming to Cormorant Hill. Oh, thank God, thought Esther. I’ll

phone him in the morning come Hell or high water. I’m in time to do it, she exulted, in

time…

Esther slept fitfully for the rest of the night, the worry about canceling Herrera’s job

gnawing at her. As she sipped her morning coffee in Elaine’s kitchen and watched María

go about the preparations for the light breakfast her parents preferred, she wondered

about the logistics of her phone call. She would have to wait until John left the house

before calling Herrera’s office, and she would have to find a public phone somewhere in

town. She didn’t want the call to show up on any bill arriving at the house.

The morning dragged on. Elaine and Yancey had a quick breakfast and told Esther they

would be driving to San Antonio for Yancey’s check-up, and Esther’s legs went shaky

with relief. They would be out of the house most of the day and maybe even until

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tomorrow if Elaine decided to shop, so Esther had a clear field ahead of her and could

keep the lies she told to a minimum. Now if only John would get up and get out….

John was ready to leave the house around eleven, and Esther asked if she could drop

him off in town since she had a few things to do and needed the car.

“Such as….?” Inquired John.

Esther was taken aback. John almost never questioned her about her activities, and she

had not bothered to come up with details.

“Well….not much…I need to drive to the ranch, and then stop by Myrna’s place to pick

up something for María….” You’re in over your head, girl, stop talking.

“What are you going to do at the ranch?”

Esther prayed for the reappearance of the cold, logical, uninvolved woman who had

looked at the world through Esther’s eyes the last few days, but she was nowhere to be

found. Her heart was pounding.

“Um…I’m taking something Father wants to give to Mr. Jameson, some kind of

document, I don’t know what it is.”

Another foot-in-mouth move, Esther groaned to herself. John’s face seemed to cloud

and darken. He was the one who should have been given any minor task related to the

ranch, not Esther. If she had intended to remind him of the emptiness of his job, she

couldn’t have picked a better hint. Now she was trapped because the errand was as fake

as John’s job. I should manufacture shovels, she thought, I am so good at digging myself

into holes.

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“Sure, you keep the car. I’ll get home on my own. Don’t worry about it.” John seemed

to drop the matter and resume his usual smooth contentment. My God, what it must cost

him to keep up this front, lamented Esther.

After leaving John at the Hutton Cattle Company office, Esther decided to drive to a

filling station outside of town because there was a phone booth outside the corner store

next to the station. It was unlikely anyone would notice her.

Esther pulled up alongside a pump and asked the teenager who greeted her to fill the car

and clean the windows. She walked to the phone booth and fished from her purse the

hotel note paper where she had written down Herrera’s number. She gathered her coins

together and asked the operator for long distance.

A pleasant feminine voice answered. Esther asked to speak to Herrera, but he was out.

“Would you like to leave a message, Mrs…..?”

“Bainbridge, Esther Bainbridge, yes, I’d like to have him call me, it’s very urgent.”

“Oh, Mrs. Bainbridge, how lucky you phoned, Mr. Herrera is already in Ciudad Meseta

and he asked me to give you a number there where you can reach him. He said he would

be available at this number every day at two in the afternoon. Do you have something to

write on?”

“I thought he said he wouldn’t be able to get here until next week. How long has he

been here?”

“Mr. Herrera was able to begin sooner, and he isn’t one to fool around,” laughed the

pleasant voice. “He’s been there five days already, I know you will be pleased.”

Esther knew she wrote down the number on the same piece of hotel paper because she

saw it there later, but she could remember nothing else. Woman hit yet again by same

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speeding freight train: Esther imagined the headlines, and began to giggle uncontrollably.

She supposed she paid for the gas since no one made a dash to stop her as she drove away

and headed back to Cormorant Hill. Stretcher bearer! She shouted in her mind, and

found herself laughing in long, tortured breaths that ended in sobs.

A part of Esther that still gave some credence to her chance of getting through this intact

made her stop at Myrna’s café and pick up a couple of pounds of harina nixtalmalada for

María so that they could have freshly-made tortillas for dinner. One less lie to shore up.

Myrna looked at her closely as she handed over the masa harina, and Esther was not

surprised: I must look like the aftermath of a terrible disaster, a tornado comes to mind….

Esther edged the Buick slowly up the driveway and sat for a moment in the car in front

of the house, trying to calm down. She rolled down the window and breathed in the air,

still with a caress of coolness in spite of the sun. The street was almost empty except for

the sound of someone mowing a lawn—the peculiar growl of a hand-pushed mower,

stopping and starting, stopping and starting. The neighbors across the street must have a

new gardener. The sound was hypnotic, and Esther was exhausted from the emotional

wringing she had been subjected to in the last two days. Her head fell back onto the seat

and she dozed as the lazy summer sound of cicadas sang with the lawnmower and a

breeze rustled the live oaks.

Esther woke with a start, looking at her watch to see if she had missed the chance to

phone Herrera. It dawned on her that this too was a phone call she should not make from

home, but she was too drained to drive off again and search for a public telephone. She

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had over an hour to wait, but she decided she would use her father’s study to make the

call, and the devil take the hindmost.

Esther got out of the car and went into the house. She headed toward the kitchen where

she handed over the masa harina to Consuelo, much to Consuelo’s surprise, and she

served herself a tall glass of iced lemonade with a sprig of mint. She told Consuelo she

had a headache and was going to lie down, to please wake her at ten to two if she fell

asleep.

“Sí, señora,” answered Consuelo.

As Esther moved toward her wing of the house, she had a fleeting thought that every

time she had occasion to deal with Herrera, she seemed in danger of oversleeping. She

issued a short bark of laughter.

Esther washed down a couple of aspirin with her lemonade and sank onto the bed. In a

matter of moments she slept.

The house was blessedly quiet. The gauzy curtain at the study window billowed gently

with the breeze. Esther dialed the operator and requested the Ciudad Meseta number. A

man answered, the hotel receptionist who identified the hotel as Paso del Aguila. In

Spanish Esther requested the room of Señor Alberto Herrera.

Herrera picked up at the first ring. “Sí?”

“Mr. Herrera, this is Mrs. Bainbridge.”

“Hello, Mrs. Bainbridge, I’m glad you contacted my secretary. I wound up another case

ahead of time and decided to get down here right away.”

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“Mr. Herrera, I really don’t know how to say this, so I’ll just go right to the point. I will

of course pay you for anything I owe you up to now, but I don’t want your services, I

think I can manage this problem on my own.”

“I see. There’s no problem at all, this is not exactly unusual in marriage troubles, so

don’t feel bad about it. But I do have to tell you, Mrs. Bainbridge, most people call off a

job because even if they suspect the truth, they don’t want it confirmed. I have a

different impression of you, so I hope you have thought about this long and hard.”

Herrera rarely tried to talk clients out of changing their minds. As long as he was paid,

he cared very little about the kinds of compromises, arrangements, or deceptions those

clients were able to tolerate. But Esther seemed different, and he was sure that sooner or

later, she had to face the truth. If he could persuade her to do it sooner, he might save her

years of suffering. Unfortunately, the truth usually brought its own suffering, but Herrera

was the kind of man who was convinced that only truth deserved that sacrifice.

“What do you mean? Have you found something out?”

“Mrs. Bainbridge, I’m afraid I have, and that’s why I want you to think about this. If

you want to, we’ll leave the matter right here. You can pay me the days you owe me and

that’s the last of it.”

“Are you finished at this point?”

“I will be, in a couple of days more.”

A long silence ensued. Esther was too fatigued to feel anything but a mild curiosity, as

if the matter involved someone else, but not her husband. Woman hit for zillionth time

by same speeding freight train, thought Esther tiredly, scientists around the world

studying her for signs of life.

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“Mr. Herrera, I’ll call you at your hotel two days from now. Maybe we can meet there

and talk before you leave for San Antonio.” She hung up the phone. Esther no longer

cared whether she was recognized crossing the bridge and meeting a strange man in a

Mexican hotel. She only wanted sleep. She knew intuitively that she would get little

enough in the coming weeks after she heard what Herrera had to report.

In the meantime, she had two days of leeway. For two days, she thought, my life is

going to be as it was before, maybe a little bit.

She was wrong.

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6.

The day dragged on and Esther slept on and off. Near sunset Esther heard a car on the

driveway, but it was only John being dropped off by someone. Who? It occurred to her

to wonder about John’s relationships, friends, people who would give him a ride home,

but she shut the thought away violently, slamming the door on it. Not now, not now. In

two days’ time, she would be ready. But tonight she could not face the facile

explanations John seemed so adept at spinning. She certainly didn’t want to hear the

myriad questions surging through her mind at each detail, each name, each event John

related without actually imparting real information.

She and John had supper on the veranda, some of the cheese enchiladas John was so

fond of, topped with plenty of chopped onion, washed down with cold beer.

Esther and John sat on the veranda swing while John smoked and Esther sipped iced tea.

She was pale and quiet, smiling wanly at John when he spoke to her. They talked in a

desultory fashion about town gossip—John managed to be up on the latest, and Esther

suspected he had charmed more than one member of the Ladies’ Quilting Club. Esther

had no close friends in Cormorant Hill and John’s hot-off-the-presses gossip usually

entertained her, a kind of running narrative of the peccadilloes and minor tragedies of a

cast of characters with which she was familiar but not intimate. Tonight the gossip

palled, and Esther wondered what part she played in the narratives other people in

Cormorant Hill delighted in telling.

The thought was so dismal that Esther pleaded a headache and stated her intention of

retiring to her father’s study, ostensibly to read.

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“Good Lord, Esther, you read too much! No wonder you have a headache. I’m going

for a drive, it’s too early to go to bed. I may stop in town for a drink somewhere. If you

want to,” he suggested with a grin, “you can wait up for me.”

“No, no, you go on ahead. I may be coming down with something. I just don’t feel

well.”

“Suit yourself, hon.” He slapped her on the bottom as she slipped past him. “Maybe

tomorrow night.” He gave her a dazzling smile in case she might have missed the point.

Nevertheless, Esther felt there was a certain anxiety behind John’s bonhomie, perhaps

the merest whiff of desperation. As well there should be, thought Esther, because I think

our world is going to come unstuck in a couple of days.

Or maybe my world, she corrected, just mine.

She sat listlessly for a while in Yancey’s study, trying to read an outdated newspaper,

unable to concentrate on anything more demanding than news that was already old.

The telephone rang. It was Elaine, who told Esther they would be returning to

Cormorant Hill the next day after lunch. Elaine sounded strangely subdued, but Esther

was unwilling at that moment to add anyone else’s problems to her own. Not even guilt

could break through her tiredness enough to make her concerned about her mother’s state

of mind or heart.

Esther finally fell asleep on the leather couch. She had no idea what time John came in

that night, or even if he did.

When Esther woke, the sun was blazing down and aromas from the kitchen said that

María and Consuelo were preparing lunch. Something with comino, she detected, the

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seeds lightly toasted and ground with a molcajete to release their full fragrance. Her neck

ached, part of her muscles had tightened as a result of sleeping in an awkward position,

and her mouth felt dry and fuzzy. Esther went down the hall toward her wing of the

house to bathe and brush her teeth, and she was surprised to note that in spite of her

aches, she felt rested.

John slept amidst a tousle of sheets and a chaos of pillows. Esther shut the bathroom

door and soaked in a scented bath for half an hour. At the sink she pour water over her

hair and washed it with a cherry-scented shampoo. She brushed her teeth, pulled her

damp hair away from her face, and slipped into the bedroom to dress in peddle-pushers

and a sleeveless blouse. She slid her feet into sandals and made her way toward the

kitchen.

Before she got there, she heard a car coming up the drive, so she ran to the front door to

fling it open and greet her parents.

“You’re early!” Esther found herself inexplicably joyful at their return.

Yancey and Elaine get out of their car and came toward Esther. Yancey, as was his

habit, grabbed Esther in a hug and spun her around. Elaine gave her a kiss on the cheek,

an unusual gesture which Esther welcomed. The three of them traipsed into the house.

“Consuelo is making lunch, I was about to find out when it’ll be ready when I heard the

car,” said Esther.

“Good,” replied Elaine, “let me freshen up then.” Esther was about to reply that her

mother always looked fresh, when she noticed that it was not true today. Elaine looked

paler than usual.

“Is something wrong? Mother, do you feel all right?” she asked.

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“Yes, dear, I’m fine, but it was hot in San Antonio and your father and I are both tired.

Let’s talk later.”

Esther noticed that as her parents moved toward their sitting room, carrying their shared

overnight bag and Elaine’s make-up case, her father put a free arm around Elaine’s waist.

Esther was stunned. It had been years since any kind of casual physical affection had

been part of their interaction. She practically danced onto the veranda to wait for lunch

to be served in the dining room.

Lunch was a pleasant affair, perhaps in part because John was absent—he was still

asleep. Yancey and Elaine seemed glad to be home and declared their trip to have been

unpleasant in the summer heat. Esther noticed a change in the atmosphere, a warmth

between her parents she had never seen before. Over coffee on the veranda, Yancey

suggested that Elaine lie down for a nap.

“I’ll speak to Esther,” he stated, his tone seeming to indicate there was something to tell

that Elaine and Yancey shared. It can’t be anything bad, thought Esther, because they

seem to have fallen in love again.

“You’re right, Yancey, I think it’s best you speak to her.” To Esther’s astonishment,

Elaine rose, caressed her father’s hair and kissed him gently on the cheek, touched

Esther’s hair, and left the room.

“What in the world is going on here?” exclaimed Esther. “I’ve never seen you two so

affectionate—let’s face it, Mother is a very reserved woman, to put it mildly.”

Yancey laughed. “You’re right on that point, hon. But better late than never, right?

Come on into the study with me, I need to discuss something with you. By the way, has

John gone into town?”

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“No, he’s asleep.” It shamed Esther to admit it.

“Well, no harm done, as long as we won’t be interrupted.”

As Esther walked to the study with her father, she was impressed once more by his

acceptance of what could only be described as John’s irresponsibility. On the other hand,

thought Esther, he’s had his own part in it.

“Sit here on the couch with me,” invited Yancey. They sat, Esther still nursing her cup

of coffee, and Yancey began to speak.

“Esther, this is going to be hard, but you can take it. There are things that have to be

done, and not much time to do them in, so I am going to get all this off my chest right

now. Not to drag this out, I have cancer, and I am going to die. This was confirmed by

the doctor yesterday, and before you even start, there is nothing that can be done about it.

There are a few things that could be tried, but they are all pretty terrible and don’t work

in the end anyway. I don’t want to spend my last weeks that way…”

“Weeks! What do you mean, weeks!” cried Esther.

“Hon, nobody can predict these things, that was just my choice of words. The cancer is

in my lungs, both of them. Please, try to listen to me, I need to get some things

straightened out here.

“Your mother and I have gotten our own ducks in a row over the last few months.

There is a great deal I have to make up to her, there is a whole lot that I have to apologize

for and make amends over, and I’ve been doing that. I have always loved your mother,

and I think that lately maybe she loves me too again. I know it’s my fault she has been so

unhappy for so long, and it may sound like a pretty selfish thing for an old fool like me to

do, waiting until I get a death sentence before I begin mending my fences, but like I said,

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better late than never. Your mother,” he went on with a voice that threatened to break,

“is my life, and whatever I have left of it belongs to her. And of course, to you…”

Esther sat immobile, unable to make a sound, but tears rolled unchecked down her face.

“As they say in a bind like this, all my affairs are in order. You and your mother will be

very well off. I’ve already arranged for the sale of the ranch, although right now nobody

in town knows about it In fact, nobody at all knows about it except my lawyer and Bob

Jameson, and now you.

“Esther, honey, about John. No, wait, let me have my say on this before you cut in. One

of the many advantages of having money,” said Yancey dryly, “is that you can do pretty

much what you want to with the law if you get yourself a good lawyer. I have arranged

things so that you are my sole beneficiary, and your mother agrees to this. She is going

to have a certain amount of money each month, that’s all set up, but I have to tell you,

hon, that there is no way John can get his hands on this family’s money unless you hand

it over to him after your mother dies, and somehow I don’t think you would want to do

that.”

In her anguish, Esther thought about telling her father her innermost thoughts about

John, but she couldn’t bring herself to reveal that she had hired a detective. She was both

ashamed that she hadn’t asked for her father’s help, yet at the same time relieved that she

had not burdened him with her unhappiness at a time like this.

No, this was something Esther would deal with on her own. Right now all that mattered

was her father, the help Elaine would need, the sea change for them all that was visible

now on the horizon. John meant nothing, he was a cipher, something that could be put

off until another time.

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“You don’t need to worry about me, Father. I know what John is, and it’s okay. I’ve

grown up maybe more than you realize.” Esther spoke slowly to control her voice as the

tears continued. “I would never put myself under his thumb by handing over my

inheritance. Nothing could make me give up controlling my own life.”

“That’s my girl,” said Yancey, relief evident in his face. “You’ve lifted a weight from

my mind. Come here, let me give you a hug, and stop that crying.”

That was all it took for Esther to break into sobs, but beneath her pain as she clung to

her father, a determination was born. She would be his pillar of strength, his comfort, his

solace, and that meant that she would be, once and for all, her own person. Years later,

thinking about the day she knew her father was going to die, Esther realized that any

vestige of her childhood died that day too. In many ways, from that day forward Esther

was finally a woman, and she was alone.

The following day at two in the afternoon, Esther telephoned Mr. Herrera from her

father’s study.

Her parents were lying down—Yancey needed more rest now, and he had turned these

decisions over to Elaine, obeying her every dictate. Yancey has spoken to John alone

after supper. Esther didn’t know what was said, but she could imagine. She studied John

closely as they undressed for bed, but she could see no overt reaction on his part. She

found this unsettling, for even when John hugged her and lamented Esther’s pain and

shock, he seemed to feel nothing himself.

“Herrera,” answered the now-familiar voice.

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“Mr. Herrera, it’s Mrs. Bainbridge, are you ready to give me your report?”

“Yes, I am, and I have the basic facts in writing for you, if you’d like to have them.”

“ Perhaps I can decide that after we talk. Would it be okay if I drove to your hotel? Is

there a restaurant there where we could have coffee?”

“Yes, there is, and if you don’t know the area, once you cross the bridge, stay on the

main street for six blocks, then turn right. The street is called Hidalgo. Two more

blocks, and you’ll see the hotel on your right. There’s a parking area in the back, you’ll

have to turn right at the next corner to drive into it because there’s no access from the

front of the hotel. Is four-thirty a good time for you?”

“I’ll be there.” Esther hung up.

Esther told Elaine she needed the car to drive into Cormorant Hill. John had taken their

car to the company office. Elaine didn’t question Esther’s motives. She was waiting for

Bob Jameson to show up to discuss ranching matters because she had forbidden Yancey

to drive to the ranch until he was more rested from the trip to San Antonio. Esther was

grateful for her mother’s total dedication to the problem at hand because it meant Esther

could come and go without stirring up questions.

Esther had been to Ciudad Meseta a few times, usually accompanied by her father and

on occasion to eat at the best restaurant in town, El Moderno. The Mexican border town

was considerably larger than Cormorant Hill. As Esther drove across the bridge and

passed the Mexican check point where a bored official waved her through, the street was

crowded with vehicles, the sidewalks swarmed with tourists going into one tiny shop

after another. The aroma of spicy food floated on the air, there were shouts from boys

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who offered to shine shoes. Everything from leather goods to rustic furniture was on

display in the stores that lined the street.

The town square boasted an ornate Catholic church, wrought iron benches under old

pecan trees, and small groups of old men passing the time in a comfortable silence,

practically as permanent as the benches and the trees. Like old men everywhere,

observing the world seemed to be entertainment enough. The town hall stood opposite

the church, shaded by an arched portico. Just outside the entrance sat a man with a small

table on which an ancient typewriter rested. For a reasonable sum, he would type up

official forms or applications for those who had business in the town hall but couldn’t

read or write.

On the square was the town’s only movie theater—Cormorant Hill didn’t have one—

running wildly popular movies starring Jorge Negrete or Pedro Infante. The almost non-

existent plots were strung together by a wealth of songs, music, and episodes of drinking

or fist fights. The occasional chaste love scenes would have the female audience

swooning.

Once in a while, a horse-drawn carriage circled the plaza, carrying American tourists.

The horse was old and bony, and the carriage had seen better days, but tourists seemed

unable to resist a ride around the square.

Esther always felt that the town was vibrant, the people more alive, than anything on the

American side. A lively, corrupt flexibility on one side, a rigid and obsessive orderliness

on the other, somehow managed to produce the same result, a kind of chaos in which it

was the very devil to get anything done fast, she thought. Be that as it may, even though

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Esther felt slightly threatened by the exuberant energy of the Mexican side of the border,

she loved it.

She carefully followed Herrera’s directions and with ten minutes to spare, she stood on

the cool tiled floor of the Paso del Aguila hotel lounge, surrounded by huge pots of ferns

and generous leather furniture. She spotted Herrera reading the local newspaper in one of

the oversized armchairs, a small briefcase on the floor beside him.

As he greeted her, she renewed her impression of him as a kind and courteous man. She

was taken aback to see that he sported an abundant mustache.

Noting her astonishment, Herrera smiled ruefully and touched the growth.

“I’m sorry I didn’t warn you about the mustache, believe me, it’s fake. I couldn’t

possibly produce anything this good.” He laughed.

“Are you…well, I guess, in disguise?” Esther sounded silly even to herself.

“Oh, not really, but I took a few days’ work as a gardener at the house across the street

from you, and somehow a mustache is one of those things a Mexican gardener is

supposed to have. It made my presence a lot less obvious than hanging around near your

front yard waiting for your husband to leave the house. Yeah, I know, real cloak and

dagger, as you once said.” Herrera smiled again, but there was a sadness that seemed to

shadow his demeanor. Esther wondered if it had to do with seeing so much of the

unsavory underbelly of human behavior. Part of which, she thought with a painful jolt of

adrenaline that caused her heart to race, I am about to hear myself.

They went into the hotel restaurant and seated themselves at a table. There were no

other customers. They ordered Cokes with ice from the waiter. As they waited for the

drinks, Esther realized she was reluctant to begin the conversation.

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With their icy, sweating glasses in front of them, Herrera gave Esther no chance to put

off the inevitable. He pulled some sheets of paper from his briefcase and placed them

carefully on the table.

“First, I could find no one in Amarillo with the names you gave me. I have a contact

there in the sheriff’s department, but he couldn’t help me either. In fact, I couldn’t find

anyone named John Bainbridge who had ever lived there. You didn’t say he had, I

checked anyway, but it’s for sure that if his mother and aunts are there, they don’t go by

the names you indicated. There is no evidence that any member of that family, or your

husband himself, lived in Amarillo if those are their real names.

“As for your husband’s activities, he seems to have three or four friends he frequents,

and they spend a lot of time on this side of the border. During the week I followed them,

they usually went to bars, but your husband also has a relationship with two women who

are higher-class prostitutes. One is about 22 years old, the other is 30. In both cases, the

women rent a house, and I spoke to one of the landlords and to a maid who cleans for the

older woman. It would appear that your husband pays for the rent on both houses.

“I can get more information if you want me to, but I have pictures of your husband’s

friends and of the women. They’re with your husband in the photos. I’ve written the

names and addresses of the women in my report, as well as the names of the landlord and

the maid, and I’ve also indicated the day and hour of each incident mentioned.”

Herrera extracted a long envelope from his briefcase and laid it alongside the papers.

Esther noticed the envelope was sealed.

“The pictures are in here. If this is enough information for your purposes, it would be a

good idea not to open it. If you need more detail for divorce proceedings, I’ll need

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another week, and it won’t be pleasant for you when I’m through. Of course,” he added

sadly, “I’m sure this isn’t either.”

Esther slid the papers and the envelope across the table. She folded the papers without

looking at them. She opened her purse and pushed the papers and the envelope inside.

She took out a small roll of cash tucked carefully behind her wallet.

“I think this report will be enough, Mr. Herrera. Here is what I owe you.” She handed

over the roll of bills. Herrera pocketed it without counting it.

“Mrs. Bainbridge, I’m sorry.” It was all Herrera could say.

Esther smiled wanly. “I know you are, Mr. Herrera. I can only thank you for your

professionalism.”

Herrera put money on the table for the soft drinks and stood up. He took Esther’s hand.

“Goodbye, Mrs. Bainbridge. I wish you well.”

Another well-spoken man, thought Esther, and she gave a sharp bark of laughter that

caused the waiter to glance at her. Two well-spoken men had torn down the fiction of her

marriage. Later, she thought, is soon enough to deal with this.

As she drove home, Esther wondered what she would do next. For the moment divorce

was out of the question. How could she burden her father’s last weeks with the grief of

his daughter’s disastrous marriage? With the legal maneuverings required to relieve her

life of John? It was unthinkable.

Esther knew intuitively that the full impact of the what Herrera had told her was

attenuated by the overwhelming fact of her father’s illness, an emotional tragedy in the

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making that had set any other source of unhappiness on the back burner. By the time she

pulled into the driveway in front of her house and parked the car, Esther had created the

bare bones of a plan that would allow her to devote all her time to helping her mother

through this crisis, a plan that would enable her to begin the process of expelling John

from her life without rousing his suspicions as to why. A plan that would give her time.

Because above all, she had managed to digest the fact—a fact born of her own

discovery-- that it was quite possible John could be dangerous.

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7.

At supper that night, Yancey spoke openly about his illness. He stressed that its course

was unpredictable, and he wanted the household to carry on in its usual way as long as

possible. John assumed a face of earnest concern and offered to relieve Yancey of some

of the responsibilities for the operation of the ranch. Yancey replied with courteous

firmness that Bob Jameson was capable of anything needed at the ranch, and he took the

opportunity to tell the little gathering that the ranch was to be sold within three months.

John’s was the only face that registered astonishment at the announcement. Esther

wondered if John had toyed with the notion that as the son-in-law, he might take over the

ranch at Yancey’s death. The idea repelled Esther.

“Yancey, my gosh, you could have told me this sooner,” remonstrated John. “And what

about the money from the sale? That needs to be set up so Elaine and Esther are taken

care of.”

Esther noticed that John had automatically placed himself in the position of future head

of the house, nobly concerned about the women, but she was sure that it was his way of

testing the waters of his father-in-law’s financial intentions.

“You don’t need to worry about a thing, I’ve made arrangements with my lawyers and

bankers. It’s all set out in my will, I’m not the kind of man to leave anything to chance.

Ranching has been chancy enough,” he laughed, taking the edge off a reply that made

clear John’s exclusion.

Esther watched John with a kind of morbid fascination. A small tightness around the

eyes, the slightest delay in his smile at Yancey’s remark, these were things that Esther

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had never noticed before, signs that John had in fact understood perfectly what Yancey

was really saying. Then with a smoothness that was truly amazing, John slid the mask

over his face and turned to Elaine.

“Let’s change the subject, shall we? Elaine, these steaks are absolutely outstanding, you

are a woman who knows how to feed a man!”

Elaine, quietly contained during the talk of illness and wills, pale, the smudge of

sleeplessness under her eyes, smiled at John and reached out to pat his hand.

“Thank you, John, and yes, please, can we make suppertime as pleasant as possible?”

Her voice held a gentle tremor. Yancey immediately agreed, promising not to speak of

his illness again at mealtime, understanding instantly her need to grasp some safe space,

some ritual of normalcy, in order to hold up during the rest of the day.

A swift, cold thrill of fear shot through Esther. John was a master at his art. Not only

had he detected Elaine’s discomfort with the conversation, he had taken advantage of it to

make Yancey look inconsiderate, he had detoured the attention away from himself, and

more frightening than anything else, he had actually gotten through Elaine’s cool façade.

She had touched John’s hand! My God, thought Esther, she is his next target. He is

covering all his bets, just in case having me under his thumb isn’t enough. All he thinks

he has to do is sit pretty and wait for my father to die.

It was John’s constant use of sexual undertones that appalled Esther, his forcing into

each remark something about men and women, no matter how minor or subtle. It wasn’t

enough to compliment Elaine on her cooking, he had to inject that she knew how to feed

a man. Everything he said seemed so innocent, yet it radiated the sexual self-confidence

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of a man who thought he was irresistible, who used sex as a power play. No doubt,

Esther thought bitterly, it only works with women as unprepared as my mother and I are.

An icy rage helped Esther to assume her own mask, but she was not sure how long she

could keep it on unless she got some distance from John. It was evident to her that she

must not show her hand, not by the most insignificant clue, the merest hesitation, the

slightest shrinking from him. It was a task she could not possibly fulfill if she didn’t limit

her time with him.

Over coffee and one of Elaine’s superb chocolate cakes, the meal came to a quiet end.

Yancey was tired, and Elaine immediately rose to accompany him to their bedroom.

Esther and John were alone at the table.

“John, listen, I’m going to move into the guest room tonight. My mother hasn’t said

anything, but you saw how worn out she’s been looking. It isn’t going to be long before

she needs help with things like oxygen tanks and nurses and pain medications. I’m going

to have to be on call at night, and she’s going to need help for just the ordinary things like

settling on the week’s menu and making sure Consuelo or María gets to the store. I’m

afraid all of us are going to be pretty much put through the wringer by this, and we sure

will need a man around who’s had a decent night’s sleep.” She smiled at John and

caressed his cheek lightly.

“You’ve been so good, so thoughtful toward everyone. Thank you for changing the

subject during dinner, John.”

Don’t overdo it, girl, Esther told herself. Only as far as John finds believable. He may

think you’re an imbecile who gets weak-kneed with a single kiss, but even if he’s shallow

as ditch water, you’ve got to be very careful.

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John pushed back his chair and stood, pulling Esther up so he could embrace her. “Of

course I understand,” he said while nuzzling her hair. Esther got the impression there was

a tiny note of relief in his acceptance. Of course there is, she thought, now you can come

and go without a moment’s hesitation, no wife to wake up and wonder where you are or

where you’ve been And you, well, you come off all noble and self-sacrificing. There’s a

lesson here for me, she mused, on how to manage this unprincipled bastard.

“Just remember, I’m your husband and I’m going to help you through this,” he

whispered, sliding his hands down her back and pressing her hips into him, pushing his

pelvis toward hers.

Esther felt sick. It was all she could do to speak: “Thank you, John, I know I can rely

on you. I’m sorry, I’m upset, I’ve been overwhelmed by the whole thing.”

She pulled away and left the dining room. John might believe for a while that her lack

of sexual response was due to emotional tribulation, but unless she got out of their

bedroom, he wasn’t going to believe it for long. Another frosty brush of fear sent chills

down her spine as she took in the quiet threat in his statement—he was her husband, and

what he hadn’t added—it wasn’t necessary—was that she’d better not forget it.

As she gathered up her toiletries and odds and ends of clothing, looking around

wondering what else she would need, she knew with certainty that John knew nothing

about Yancey’s financial arrangements. He was laboring under the impression that he

would share in the family wealth as Esther’s husband. He may even have deluded

himself into thinking that he would control her share since he would be the only male

left.

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Esther shoved her clothes and toiletries into an overnight bag, grabbed some sandals and

a pair of Keds, and quickly left before John had time to finish his leisurely coffee. She

hurried to the guest bedroom, only a bathroom away from her parents’ sitting area that

adjoined their bedroom, and opened the French doors that gave onto the veranda. A

graceful white wicker divan with brightly colored cushions sat just outside, accompanied

by a small wicker table. The guest room itself was airy, the bed and curtains in pastel

tones of white, blue and green. The floor was cool sienna-colored tile, adorned with a

large green and white woolen rug. With the good mahogany bed, dresser, and

nightstands, the ivy and jasmine clinging to the veranda railing outside, the room’s

atmosphere was calming. Best of all, Esther would be alone here.

She began placing her things in the closet and the adjacent bathroom. Elaine appeared

suddenly in the hallway as Esther was about to enter the guest room.

“What are you doing, dear? I thought I heard movement out here, you gave me a bit of

a start.”

Esther went up to her mother and hugged her, much to Elaine’s considerable surprise.

“I want to be nearby so I can help out with anything.” Esther hoped Elaine wouldn’t

question her further since she couldn’t come up with a better justification.

“But what about John? We don’t really need any help now, dear, do you think it’s wise

to up and leave him this way?”

“Oh, not at all” replied Esther with relief, “John agrees completely, you know he only

wants what’s best for all of us.” There, thought Esther, that should put paid to the whole

matter.

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She was right. Elaine was unwilling to assume problems where none seemed to exist;

her reserve, added to the cataclysmic changes that loomed over the little family, only

accentuated her tendency to accept at face value any explanation that freed her from the

bothersome difficulties of others.

She is so vulnerable now, thought Esther. I’m going to have to protect her from John.

God alone knows what he has in mind, but if he thinks he can get to the money through

her, he has a very unpleasant surprise in store.

The days and nights slipped into a routine that seemed to bring time to a halt. During

the following weeks the sense of waiting and dread began to fade somewhat as Yancey’s

health showed no changes other than increased tiredness and the beginnings of weight

loss. Any business was taken care of at the house. The sale of the ranch had not affected

Bob Jameson’s job, since the new owners wanted him to stay on, but he had refused the

offer. Jameson showed up at the house, his usual dour self, to say goodbye to Yancey

one late September afternoon. He and Yancey sat on the veranda outside the dining

room, sipping coffee, for over an hour. Their silence was punctuated by a remark or two

as they watched the sun head for the horizon and saw a formation of geese slipping

through the high autumn air on their way south. There was little that needed to be said

aloud between the two men. Esther glanced at them from time to time as she wandered

through the dining room on her way to the kitchen. She felt a stab of acute sadness. She

could only imagine the pain of this goodbye, a goodbye that would be forever, no hope of

reprieve.

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As Jameson got up, he shook Yancey’s hand and made his way toward the front door.

He saw Esther and came up to her.

“Miss Esther, I’ll be on my way now.”

“What will you do now, Bob?”

“Oh, I have a little piece of farmland out near Austin. I guess it’s time for me to retire.

Can’t stay on the ranch without Mr. Hutton.”

Esther saw that he had tears starting in his eyes. She offered her hand, and Jameson

took it.

“Good luck to you, Bob. I’m so glad you came today.”

“Thank you, Miss Esther. Goodbye.”

As Jameson walked down the curved drive to the street toward his old pick-up, she

remembered the times he had saddled up a horse for her and watched her ride off with her

father “to check out the south forty”, they would joke. Bob was the one who had taught

her to saddle and bridle a horse, how to muck out a stall, how to use the hoof pick to

remove debris from a horse’s hooves, how to use the currycomb, what to do when a horse

spooked or refused to cross a stream. Once he had shown her what kinds of places to

avoid on the ranch so she wouldn’t come across a rattlesnake.

It seemed to Esther that huge chunks of her past were sloughing off and fading, turning

into a colorless and painful collection of memories, but she knew it was only her

childhood dying within her, loosening the last few ties that kept it alive, saying goodbye

forever, this too with no hope of reprieve.

As September slipped into October, and Yancey began having trouble breathing, clunky

oxygen tanks were set up in his bedroom. He still got around the house but spent more

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and more time lying down. During these times, Esther would often sit with him, and

slowly but surely, her father filled her in on all the details she would need to know in

order to run the household: bank accounts were placed in her name, she was introduced

to the San Antonio accountant who drove to Cormorant Hill at Yancey’s request, she met

lawyers who were in charge of her father’s will and who placed themselves courteously

at her disposal for anything she might need.

Elaine hired—at very generous wages—two retired nurses who lived in Cormorant Hill,

one for daytime and another for nights, but she took care of Yancey most of the morning

and during the night with the nurse’s help. The afternoons belonged to Esther. When the

practical affairs of money and power were out of the way, they would spend time quietly.

Esther read or Yancey would teach Esther to play poker, a game that caused them both

much hilarity as each tried to out-cheat the other for penny-ante stakes. Eventually the

laughter stopped; it made Yancey begin to cough uncontrollably, gasping desperately for

breath. Though his quiet resistance seemed to extend his life far beyond what would

ordinarily be expected, it was evident to Esther that her father’s time was coming to a

close. He was not in pain, but his weight melted away, reducing him to a weak and bed-

ridden version of who he had been.

Esther went to her part of the house each day for clothes, shoes, and odds and ends.

Sometimes John would still be asleep, although he usually got up earlier than was his

habit and went to the office in Cormorant Hill. With the whole town aware of Yancey’s

illness, John wanted to emphasize his presence as the heir apparent, thought Esther. She

had no idea what he did there, who he spoke to, what he was saying, nor did she care.

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Esther didn’t want to make her repugnance evident because she was afraid of John’s

reaction. He might be capable of creating all kinds of trouble now that Yancey was

unable to maintain the order that his mere presence imposed. The only real time she

spent with John was at mealtimes with Elaine, and she was careful to be superficially

affectionate. Playing dumb seems to be work, thought Esther with disgust, since John

thinks I’m an idiot. No wonder he spends his nights somewhere else, he thinks I’m too

stupid even to notice he’s gone. Good, she thought, good, he’ll find out who is holding

the winning hand soon enough.

For his part, John managed to exchange a few words with Yancey every day, but his real

efforts were devoted to Elaine. When Yancey no longer felt able to accompany the

women during meals, John took over the role of host, to the extent of sitting in Yancey’s

usual chair at the head of the table. Esther’s fury was hidden behind a pretense of

distraction and sadness. From this vantage point, she watched John’s exaggerated

courtesies and blatant gallantries as he wooed Elaine. He would never pour the

lemonade, but if wine was served, he made sure to uncork the bottle and serve Elaine

first. Esther was astonished that Elaine seemed unaware of the falseness of it all, but she

also noted that Elaine didn’t react to these overtures except in terms of minimal

politeness. It was anyone’s guess what Elaine was thinking behind her elegant façade.

Occasionally, John would direct the same bright beam of attention toward Esther, but

for the most part she was mercifully ignored except for a few pats on the rear end or a sly

wink. God almighty, thought Esther, either this man is a cretin or I am getting as good at

betrayal and falsehood as he is.

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November brought the first really cold weather to Cormorant Hill, and it was during a

night of rain turning to sleet that Yancey died. Morphine had helped him tolerate the

battle for every breath now, the coughing that left him ashen and exhausted, the agony

that Elaine and Esther were going through as they watched him fight to draw air.

As he lay in a drug-induced sleep, his jaw dropped open and worked fish-like as he

breathed. It was obvious death was imminent. He was so thin that his face seemed like a

skull poorly disguised with flesh. Elaine sat holding his limp hand. The night nurse had

phoned to say she was having trouble getting to the house because of the weather.

“Esther,” said Elaine suddenly, “please leave us alone for a few minutes. I’ll call you if

there’s any change.” Her tone of voice left no option. “I need to be with your father for a

while.”

Esther leaned over and kissed her father’s cheek, then went to lie on her bed in the guest

bedroom, exhausted and miserable. Dear God, she thought, will it never end?

She must have fallen into a deep sleep, for suddenly Elaine was gently shaking her arm.

“Esther, wake up, dear. He’s gone.”

Esther pulled herself from the bed and rushed to where her father lay. She heard

sounds from the entrance where apparently the nurse was arriving. Sleet continued to

fall.

The bedroom was barely lit by a sole lamp on a bedside table. Her father seemed to be

someone else, the ravages of his disease turning his body into that of a stranger. Esther

pulled a chair close to the bed and touched his hand. It was cold, and Esther, knowing

how much he had suffered from the cold as his flesh melted, adjusted the bedclothes so

that he was covered up to the chin.

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Elaine must have stopped the nurse outside the room, thought Esther, she’s giving me

this time alone with my father. She was too fatigued to react with anything other than a

penetrating sadness.

As she sat, she glanced at the vials, syringes, and glasses on the nightstand, a small

carafe of water, unguents and creams for wasting skin, Chapstick for dry, cracking lips.

Her gaze settled on an empty morphine vial and a used syringe that lay beside it. She and

her mother knew how to give the blessed injections that relieved Yancey’s suffering, and

when the night nurse was unable to reach the house, she had given Yancey a small dose

earlier in the evening. There was no reason for the vial to be empty, except one.

Noises in the hall meant someone was going to enter the room. Esther grasped the vial

and the syringe and shoved them into her bathrobe pocket, jabbing herself in the thigh

with the needle as she did so. The unexpected pain broke through her fatigue and

brought anguished tears to her eyes as Elaine and the nurse came in.

Esther stood to one side as the nurse went through the routine of verifying the death of

her patient. Elaine, behind the nurse, looked toward the nightstand with a frown of

concern that turned to a dawning realization. She and Esther looked at one another. A

small, tired smile played on Elaine’s lips.

“Thank you,” she mouthed silently.

Esther nodded.

The state of exhausted relief lasted for Esther and Elaine during the following several

days. The removal of the body from the house, the funeral, the burial in freezing

weather, the huge numbers of mourners who came to show their respect, all passed as in a

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movie—something recorded but only experienced second-hand. Masses of food were

prepared for the mourners as Elaine took charge of the maids. Myrna herself offered to

cook for Elaine, and she closed her restaurant for three days as she and her daughter

manned the Hutton kitchen. People came from San Antonio and nearby towns for a week

after the burial, bringing flowers or condolences, visiting the gravesite, and sitting for a

while with Esther and Elaine in the living room before moving on.

Eventually they were left alone. The house seemed more deadly quiet than it had ever

been, and had it not been for John, the meals might have transpired in silence. Elaine and

Esther shared a quiet closeness. John seemed more determined than ever to make himself

the head of the house, and as such, he rarely missed supper.

Two weeks after Yancey’s death, a lawyer from San Antonio came to Cormorant Hill to

read the will.

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8.

Mr. Andrew Young, Elaine, Esther and John sat in Yancey’s study with the windows

open to one of those odd, balmy days that come along in south Texas to interrupt the

winter chill. The pecan trees and live oaks had shed most of their leaves, and the grass in

the lawns all along the street was beginning to lose the last of its green. Winter roses had

not survived the sleet, and gardeners had covered hydrangea bushes with rough sacking,

putting them to bed to wait out the icy season. Elaine’s beautiful begonias had been

brought into the house in their clay pots, sitting tastefully next to windows in order to

soak up whatever light there was during the day.

The study had become a strange field of battle between Esther and John, unspoken and

unacknowledged. Esther had carefully gone over her father’s papers as she arranged

them in files to place in a small safe she had ordered from San Antonio and set inside a

locked cabinet that made up a section of the bookcase. She placed the key on a thin gold

chain around her neck and left the most recent bank statement and the checkbook in the

desk. She was the only member of the household who knew the safe’s combination.

The safe’s advent had been something of a trial. It was heavy even if it was small, and it

was fortunate that the delivery took place at a time when John was out of the house.

After it had been hauled into the study by the struggling driver of the delivery truck,

shoved into place, and the cabinet closed, no evidence of it remained in view.

One evening Esther had surprised John in the study. He was sitting in Yancey’s chair

going through the desk’s contents. Esther feigned a calm she was far from feeling and

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pretended to search for a book. John assumed his man-of-the-house mode and informed

her he needed to use the desk now that business would be conducted from the house—he

suggested they stop renting the office space in Cormorant Hill since it was no longer

necessary. Maybe the new ranch owners would be interested in taking it over on a

sublease. And by the way, did Esther know where Yancey kept property titles and

financial or legal documents?

Esther suggested they wait until the will was read before coming to any conclusions on

the office. She already knew that the office would be dismantled at the end of the month,

but she had no desire to show her hand before it was absolutely necessary.

“No, John, I haven’t felt up to going through Father’s papers, can’t we wait? Please, it’s

just too soon for me.”

“Sure, hon, don’t you worry about a thing. I’ll help Elaine whip things into shape once

we get the will squared away.”

We’ll see about that, thought Esther.

As Mr. Young, the lawyer, stated the conditions of Yancey’s will, a dead silence

prevailed. Esther watched John. Some of the color left his face. There was no spark of

good humor in his eyes, and his features were set in cold hatred. Esther felt she was

seeing his true feelings for the first time.

John glanced at her and found her watching him. This time she made no pretense of

ignorance or innocence. She returned his gaze steadily, unsmiling, knowing that now the

truth was out in the open between them. The money and the power belonged to her.

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She could almost see the wheels turn in John’s mind. It was gut instinct on his part to

maneuver and manipulate, and for John the rules of the game had changed radically.

Elaine was insignificant now, it was Esther who had to be handled. She saw the thought

go through his brain as if it had been lit up in neon on his forehead. With what surely

must have been the effort of will of the century, he managed to smile at her and reached

for her hand. For the moment she let him hold it. Tomorrow would come the second half

of John’s rude awakening.

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9.

Esther waited patiently in the dining room the next morning, sipping coffee and

wondering what time John would decide to get up. Now that there was no façade to be

shored up by his presence in the Cormorant Hill office of the defunct Hutton Cattle

Company, there was no telling when he would appear.

Esther had taken care to dress for the occasion. She wore a red wool sweater over a

pleated Scottish plaid skirt, black tights, and sensible flats. She knew that red favored

her. She had even applied more make-up than usual. Somehow she wanted to look her

best for this event.

It was almost noon and Esther had decided to wake John when he strolled into the

dining room. She noted with a quiet glee that he looked considerably less spruced up

than she did. His jeans, sweat shirt, and loafers meant he had no intention of driving into

town until later.

“I’d like to talk to you after you’ve had breakfast, John. We need to get some things

straightened out.”

John looked at her with a mixture of curiosity and disdain. “Let me get some coffee and

we can talk right now,” was his reply.

“Fine. We’ll talk in the study.” Esther got up and walked out, waiting for John to

follow her when he had his mug of coffee in hand.

Esther sat behind Yancey’s desk, which left John only two choices, the leather sofa or a

comfortable arm chair in front of the desk. He chose the sofa; since it was to one side of

the desk, it seemed less subservient than sitting in front of Esther like some kind of

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petitioner. He leaned back, tasted his coffee, and rested one leg down the length of the

sofa. “What’s up, hon?”

“I may as well get to the point. I know about the two women you keep in Ciudad

Meseta. I know that you pay their rent, and I imagine they provide you with sexual

services since I’ve heard they are expensive prostitutes. This is not exactly a first for a

Cormorant Hill man, and I also guess the whole damned town knows by now.”

Esther interrupted John’s attempt to speak. “No, hang on a minute. As far as I’m

concerned, you can do whatever you want to. It would be silly of me to raise Cain over

this when my own father had God knows how many mistresses over there, and I suppose

the whole town knew about that too. All I really care about is keeping up a decent front

for my mother’s sake. She has had enough to deal with lately. You will continue to get

the money you were being paid by my father, that should do you nicely for now.”

John now sat with his elbows on his knees, hands clasped, looking down at the rich tan

carpet.

“There isn’t much I can say, is there?” He looked up at Esther. “You know that we’ve

been sleeping apart since your father’s cancer, and I’m not going to deny anything. It’s

true. Who told you about this?”

“Does it really matter?” asked Esther.

“Well, I guess not. I just want you to know that in spite of what you may think now, I

love you and I still want you. If there is anything I can do to convince you of that, I’ll do

it. Those women don’t mean anything to me. If you’ll give me another chance, I’m sure

I can be a real help to you and a better husband too.”

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John stood up and paced the floor. “You’ve been right all along but I was too blind to

see it.”

God, what a cliché, thought Esther. But with his lack of education, where was he going

to get better material?

“Give me time to set it up, and we’ll go see my mother and aunts, I want to turn this

thing around. I know that one of the reasons I kept prostitutes was because I was feeling

so ashamed, so inferior to you.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, stop it,” exclaimed Esther angrily. “That song and dance worked

once but it won’t work twice. You don’t have a mother or aunts in Amarillo, so yes, I

guess you will need quite a bit of time to set it up, as you say.”

John sank onto the sofa, nonplussed.

“I also know that these prostitutes have been on your payroll, so to speak, since long

before my father became ill. It sure as heck wasn’t my absence from the bedroom that

drove you into their arms,” she stated sarcastically.

John slapped a thigh and laughed heartily. “Damnation, Esther, I have really

underestimated you! Okay, what kind of arrangement do you want from all this?” There

was real admiration in John’s voice. Of course there is, thought Esther, he only

appreciates the exercise of power.

“You can live here, you will get paid like I said, you can spend your whole time with

whores if you want to, but around here there are going to be some conditions. First, you

are to appear at supper but you are not to sit in my father’s chair. You are to be courteous

to my mother but stop flirting with her; she can’t loan you any money without my say-so,

the terms of the will should have made that clear to you. I don’t want any open scandal

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that Elaine might hear about. If you agree to these conditions, you are free to come and

go as you like.”

John’s face had a contemplative look. “That is really generous of you, frankly. Most

women would want a divorce.”

“Well, I don’t. You know the reason why. If you can be discreet about your doings,

there’s no reason for me to divorce you. I would like to know, if you don’t mind, exactly

who you are and where you come from.”

John laughed again. “You got me there, that’s for sure. My name is John Bainbridge,

but I’m from Houston. I do know something about the oil business because I’ve worked

in the oil fields, but not with my father. I have no idea who he was. My mother drank

herself to death when I was fifteen. You might say she had a hard time making ends

meet so she worked on her back.”

Esther was horrified, but also suspicious. Was this another tale of tragedy made up for

her benefit? It didn’t matter any longer, and with a sigh of frustration she waved away

any more comment on John’s past.

“Do you agree to my conditions?” she asked.

John rose and came toward her. Slightly alarmed, Esther stood also.

“I’d be out of my mind to turn down a deal like this. And don’t you get the wrong

idea, it has been my very great pleasure to bed you. I never saw a woman so willing.

Will that still be part of my job description?” John reached for her.

Esther stepped back, bumping into the desk chair and grabbing at the backrest to keep

from falling.

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“Don’t ever touch me again,” she exclaimed. “I won’t have it. If you so much as brush

against me too hard, this deal is off.”

“Have it your way. Let me know if you change your mind,” John grinned. He turned to

leave the room.

Esther felt undercut, her mastery of the situation dwindling. She was appalled that

some of her fear of John had been detected by him. She had to regroup somehow or her

whole position was in peril.

“John, I have something else to say.”

John stopped and turned to face her. “Yeah?”

“I’ve had you followed. I have documents and pictures, pictures of you with those

friends of yours and also with your whores. If I ever wanted a divorce, you wouldn’t

have a leg to stand on. You’d better think about that if you decide to pull something on

me. I’m not alone even if it seems like it. My father took just about everything into

account, and that includes you.”

“Fine,” he responded. “Then we know exactly where we stand, don’t we?” His voice

was as cold as ice.

“Yes, we do,” said Esther, hoping her voice sounded firm and strong.

“You know what, let’s get everything out in the open once and for all,” stated John, still

standing near the door. “You aren’t the only one able to snoop around, though I’ll have

to admit I never hired someone to do it for me. That is really priceless, I never would

have thought you were up to something like that. You had me fooled ten ways to Sunday

there.

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“I, on the other hand, know that one of the things your father did in Ciudad Meseta was

get a couple of his women pregnant. Not on purpose, I’m sure, and I’m also sure he

covered his tracks pretty well in a legal sense. There probably won’t be any young

Mexican women showing up at your doorstep with mewling brats in their arms,

demanding justice. But it also isn’t one of those things you want to get out, what with

Elaine in mourning and all, is it? So we’ve got ourselves, if you’ll pardon the expression,

a Mexican standoff, don’t we? You hold the purse strings with an iron fist, and I know

things you don’t want anyone else to hear about, especially your mother. So let’s just

take it easy here and not go off half-cocked. I’m sure our little arrangement will suit us

fine.”

John strode from the study. Esther went to the sofa and sat down, stunned. God in

heaven, she thought, what next? Was what John said even true? And if it were true, did

her mother know about these illegitimate offspring? Esther knew John was a

consummate liar, but she doubted he would try to play a card he didn’t have in his hand

at this point in the game. He definitely could no longer count on Esther’s stupidity or

lack of initiative. In a way, Esther had made her situation riskier by revealing she was

not the dim light bulb John thought her to be, but there was no choice in the matter now.

She was not even sure how she felt about the possibility that her father had sired

bastards. What does it matter, she thought, if he and mother managed to forgive each

other? He made his amends, he asked for forgiveness. Whatever he did in the past is part

of another world. I loved him, and that’s all that is going to matter to me.

She took a deep breath. She felt her father’s presence in this room that still smelled of

his cigars. Whatever happens, thought Esther, I can handle it. No one is going to hurt my

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father’s memory nor my mother’s peace of mind. As long as I control the money, I hold

the winning hand.

In the meantime, she would consider what to do about John.

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10.

Esther and Elaine sat in companionable silence in the living room before a dancing fire

that shed sudden light and shadows over their faces. Esther rested on the couch and read.

Elaine sat in her favorite armchair and seemed intent on the play of fire in the hearth, lost

in thought.

Esther lowed her book and watched Elaine. Elaine was fading. She seemed at loose

ends, her life unstructured, her reason for getting up in the morning gone. How roughly

I’ve judged her, thought Esther. How easy for me to find fault while she kept my life on

an even keel.

“Mother, shall I get out the Christmas decorations and get us a tree?”

Elaine seemed to think about this as she stared into the fire.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she answered dully, still watching the flames leap. “I’m not much

in the mood for it this year. Why don’t you and John do whatever pleases you two?”

“I’ll tell you what,” said Esther with sudden decision. “I’ll get Myrna to make us

something good for Christmas day and send it over, and since we’re in mourning, I think

it’s alright if we don’t do any decorating this year. I’ll just put all the Christmas cards on

the chimney mantel and that will be celebration enough.”

“Oh dear, I haven’t sent out a single card.” Elaine seemed concerned and confused at

such an act of omission.

“Don’t worry, I sent them all out with that list you made up last year, remember? You

put it in the top drawer of Father’s desk. But you’re right, I don’t feel like doing anything

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special either. I’m sure John will agree,” added Esther. You bet he’ll agree, she thought,

he doesn’t give a tinker’s damn about what we do as long as he gets paid.

Elaine looked at her daughter with relief. “You’ve been wonderful through all this,

dear. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

“It’s been terribly hard on you, Mother. I’m just glad you and Father had those good last

few months together. I have to admit I don’t remember seeing you two that close before.

I know there have been some problems between the two of you, and it isn’t much of a

reach to guess why, but you made all the difference in Father’s last weeks.”

There, I’ve done it, thought Esther. Maybe I can tease out some information if I’m

careful.

Elaine leaned back in her armchair. For a moment Esther thought she was not going to

speak.

“Yes, I suppose you have heard the rumors, I guess. It’s not something I really want to

talk about now, but you aren’t to worry, your father and I recovered our old feelings for

each other and did away with the past. It’s dead and gone, no part of my life any longer.”

Esther knew she couldn’t leave it at that. Elaine’s tendency to protect her isolation with

vagueness had to be overcome. Esther needed hard facts.

“John and I have had our troubles too, and not just about my not getting pregnant. For a

while I was afraid he might get some girl in Ciudad Meseta pregnant just to prove he isn’t

the one who can’t have children. He’s had more than one fling across the river, but we

seemed to have ironed things out finally.”

“Oh, Esther, I had no idea,” exclaimed Elaine, showing some animation. “I’m so glad

to hear things have worked out. I can’t imagine anything more humiliating or

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contentious than discovering your husband has children by another woman. If everything

is all right now with you and John, why are you still staying in the guest room?”

It was a question Esther had not expected. It was hard for her to think as she sank into a

dark, despairing conviction that Elaine had no knowledge of Yancey’s illegitimate

children, if there were any. It didn’t really matter. If John started a rumor of that sort,

who would bother to check the facts when it would be so much easier and exciting for

gossipmongers simply to believe the worst?

“I guess I’ve been overwhelmed by Father’s death, it didn’t occur to me to move back.

John has been so understanding, he hasn’t pressured me. He knows I need time to

recover a bit.”

Lord, would Elaine swallow a story like that one? Would she wonder, if she and John

were on such good terms, why Esther didn’t rely on him to comfort her when she needed

it most?

But Elaine sank back into her reverie, watching the fire, her thoughts a million miles

away, inaccessible.

Four days before Christmas, Esther ordered a small turkey from Myrna’s café, and on the

afternoon of the 24th Myrna herself showed up loaded with a roasted turkey, a casserole

of sweet potatoes, some of her famous tamales made with shredded pork, and crunchy

buñuelos de viento, a sinful fried treat dusted with sugar and cinnamon. When Esther

tried to pay her for the food, Myrna refused. Taken aback, Esther asked why. Myrna

explained that she harbored a deep sense of thankfulness toward Esther’s family because

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of what Yancey had done for her daughter. If helping with food in their time of need was

something she could do for them, she did it happily, grateful for the chance to be of use.

Esther was at a loss for words. She didn’t know whether it might be more

embarrassing to reveal she didn’t know what her father had done for Myrna’s daughter,

or to find out what it was.

Her look of confusion prompted Myrna to speak.

“You remember, Miss Esther. Remember how Silvia had that stomach pain that

wouldn’t go away? And Mr. Hutton paid for her to see a doctor in San Antonio? If he

hadn’t done that for us, she wouldn’t be alive today. Mr. Hutton paid for her appendicitis

operation and everything. I paid him back a little at a time, but I’ll never forget any of

you for what you did for us.”

“Oh, yes, of course I remember, Myrna, thank you so much.” Esther tried hard to sound

convincing.

After Myrna had left and Esther shut the door on the cold December afternoon, she

didn’t know whether to laugh or cry or shout with anger. Everyone in this house is close-

mouthed, secretive, hiding something, thought Esther. We are total strangers to one

another. What kind of person hides his good deeds? And if her father hid his acts of

generosity, she could be sure he would hide the unsavory details of his past, marital

reconciliation or not.

Money can silence a lot of things, she thought. It can make unpleasant truths cease to

exist. I think that’s a lesson you didn’t mean to teach me, Father, mused Esther, but I’ve

learned it well.

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On Christmas Eve, Esther, Elaine and John had a glass of champagne by the living room

fire and exchanged small gifts. Elaine gave John a beautiful leather belt with a silver

buckle. She gave Esther a pair of earrings, tiny diamond chips set in 24-carat gold. John

had contributed the very expensive champagne.

Esther symbolically handed over the car keys to John because she had bought herself a

red and white two-toned Buick, delivered that very afternoon as a Christmas present to

herself. She wanted to leave Yancey’s car free for Elaine’s use only. She gave Elaine a

silver picture frame; she had removed the wedding picture of Yancey and Elaine from the

set of albums in the study and put it into the frame. The sight of the photo seemed to lift

Elaine’s spirits.

Elaine excused herself early and went to bed. John left the house for parts unknown,

although Esther was sure he had crossed the river to celebrate in his own inimitable

fashion.

Esther tried on her new earrings and went to what she still considered her father’s

study. It will always be Yancey’s study, she thought.

She sat in the desk chair nursing a glass of champagne and thinking about the future.

Time seem to slow down in Cormorant Hill, but Esther had never noticed it before. It

had always felt like she was waiting for something to happen, for her life to begin. A

sense of anticipation made up for the endless change of season, the feeling that nothing

really happened except, well, the waiting.

Now Esther realized there was nothing to wait for. She was in charge of her life in

every sense. She would not have the dedication or caring for others that motivated

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Elaine, or at least the effort to preserve the semblance of married life. There would be

the house to run, the accounts to monitor, but there would be no husband or children to

give meaning to her life or to take up her time. Esther wondered what she was going to

do. She toyed with the idea of a job, if only part time, but she shrank from the thought of

going into town and perhaps hearing a whisper of gossip about her father or John from

some careless tongue. There was no ranch to run, no business interests to watch over,

and little she could do at home to fill the days.

On the other hand, she thought, if I get involved in some kind of charity work, it will go

a long way toward making sure my father’s name is remembered with affection and

respect. Old clichés notwithstanding, Esther knew it was in fact abominably easy to

speak ill of the dead, especially when the dead were wealthy and powerful.

The more she thought about it, the better the idea seemed. It would give her something

to do so that she didn’t wander around the house like the local ghost.

Esther had very little interest in religion of any brand even though her parents had been

members of the local Episcopalian church, members in good standing if not exactly

fervent. She knew that the tiny Catholic church in Cormorant Hill tried hard to provide

help for poor families around the region, especially Mexican American families in need.

The church was something of an anomaly since most of the Catholics were across the

border, but it had managed to keep afloat in spite of rough going in the heavily Protestant

seas.

Esther was sure the priest there would fling himself at her feet in thankfulness if she

offered to sponsor some of the charitable activities. Why not go where I’m needed, she

thought, it will at least keep me from brushing up against that gaggle of gossiping women

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in the quilting club and providing them with their rumor-soaked cannon-fodder for the

week.

By gosh, I’ll do it, she thought. Right after the New Year.

Years later, Esther was to think that the decision was fatal. Had it not been for the little

Cormorant Hill Catholic church, surely she would have killed only once.

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11.

Father James McCray, the young priest at Our Lady of Sorrow church, charmed Esther

immediately. His bounding enthusiasm for his mission and his tireless efforts on behalf

of his parishioners were undimmed by time constraints, lack of money, or distance. He

managed to get around to farms, ranches and isolated homes in an ancient Ford coupe

that often needed more attention than the sick or dying. When Esther approached Father

James with an offer of help, she was greeted as an angel from heaven. Father James

knew who she was only from hearsay, but he was aware that her family was the

wealthiest in town. He was too young and too fresh from the seminary to have developed

the servile, greed-tinged attitudes of many priests when faced with the rich and powerful.

He saw Esther’s soul, not her money.

That alone was like a breath of fresh air to Esther who, perhaps for the first time in her

life, felt she was being seen as who she was and not as what she had.

The result was, for Esther, a fulfilling activity that put her in touch with life as lived by

those who had little or at least not enough. Her partnership with Father James was built

up over the long drives to take basic supplies to families caring for a sick breadwinner, to

administer the last rites to the dying—sometimes in a distant hospital, but most often in

homes where the dying were surrounded by family members and friends. On these

occasions the advent of Father James was cause for making a fresh pot of coffee, offering

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the tastiest of the cakes and cookies, and a profusion of thanks and handshakes that

always included Esther.

For her part, Esther immediately scrapped the leprous coupe and bought a used Ford

pick-up for Father James, thus enabling him to haul loads of firewood for those who

needed it or for the parish house—the parish cabin was how Esther thought of it, a

stifling oven in summer and a windy refrigerator in winter. During the next two years,

Esther hired a contractor to build a small brick house with fireplace and ceiling fans,

plenty of electrical outlets, and even a back yard terrace and fenced area for a vegetable

garden.

She did these acts of kindness and charity quietly, and Father James accepted them with

a calm dignity. He perceived that Esther wanted no hoopla associated with her donations,

that she was content simply to be his friend and partner is furthering the well-being of

those who needed him.

Father James was white-skinned and red-haired, looking like an Irish school boy rather

than an adult. Esther forced him to wear a hat after the first few times he worked in the

garden planting squash because he was painfully sunburned after half an hour. He looked

silly wearing a cassock with a Stetson, and Esther immediately regretted having

automatically bought the kind of hat her father would have chosen—and would have

looked quite natural wearing.

But Father James refused to wear any other headgear. Even though he had learned

Spanish with Esther’s help and did well with the language, his east coast background

made him see all things Texan as exotic and exciting. This included the Stetson Esther

brought him, and he was as thrilled with it as a little boy might have been.

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Fortunately, none of his soft-spoken and grateful parishioners roared with laughter upon

seeing him decked out with the peculiar combination.

Only Sam Wilding, that man of all trades, who came by from time to time to help

Father James load firewood or to donate some spare time in the parish garden, could be

seen to hide a chortle of glee at the sight of the priest’s cowboy hat. Esther was appalled.

She sidled up to Sam, gave him a good pinch on the arm, and warned him that he would

be struck by lightning if he dared laugh out loud.

Sam, being who he was, broke down at that and guffawed. Esther stalked away in

feigned disgust but could not resist smiling.

From a myriad of such details was forged the only friendship Esther remembered

having. It was the happiest she had ever been since her very earliest childhood. She felt

out of place in the little church, the incense and trappings of Catholicism were foreign to

her upbringing, she was uncomfortable with the genuflecting and signing of the cross.

Father James himself seemed like a stranger to her during religious services, solemn and

distant, communing with his God. So after a single Mass, she did not return to the little

church during worship.

Father James, however, was one of those rare souls who valued content over form, and

he valued Esther profoundly. It was unfortunate that he was not at the parish long

enough to waylay her on a path to murder and damnation.

In the course of the next few years, the routine at the Hutton home became as fixed and

reliable as the rising of the sun. Esther was not sure whether it was John’s absence

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except for dinner, or if her own contentment with her volunteer work spread to the rest of

her life, but she felt that a kind of peace had settled over the house.

Her only worry was Elaine, who never seemed quite to recover from a kind of absent

distraction. Elaine let Esther determine the week’s menu, take care of payments and

purchases, and any other mundane household matter. It wasn’t that Esther took over

unbidden. Elaine simply gave up. She no longer cared about table settings, the right

crystal and whether the silver was polished or not. There was nothing Esther could do to

interest Elaine in life, so she settled for being a steady companion to her, sitting with her

in the evenings on the veranda or in the living room, telling her about the day’s

adventures with Father James. Elaine appeared to enjoy hearing about Esther’s activities,

but it might have been because it relieved her of having to make conversation. Esther

imagined the two of them together, slowly growing older, set in their routines like old

biddies, more like sisters than mother and daughter.

Once in a while, Esther drove Elaine to the cemetery where they would spend a few

silent moments, lost in thought, at Yancey’s grave. Elaine has refused to place marble

angels or anything else blatantly religious at the gravesite. A simple headstone of

polished granite declared who lay there.

There were aspects of the situation at home that Esther appreciated. For one thing,

Elaine never asked Esther why she was still in the guest room years after Yancey’s death.

Had Elaine been more involved in life, that might have become an uncomfortable

question prodding Esther into revealing her true relationship with John.

And it also kept Elaine from noticing the coldly courteous interaction of Esther and

John during suppertime. True to the agreement, John rarely missed a dinner. Relieved,

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however, of pretending to be what he wasn’t, John had foregone the chatter and flirting,

leaving the women to make do for themselves in the conversation department. More

often than not, the talk was reduced to a few comments about the food, the weather, or

Esther’s day. The women seemed to tolerate the meal in a comfortable intimacy, and

before long John’s presence went almost unnoticed except for a perfunctory greeting on

Esther’s part and Elaine’s inevitable, polite “Good evening, John.”

Once a month Esther wrote a check in the study and handed it over to John—her part of

the deal. John always accepted it with a grin, as if somehow he had put something over

on her. It never failed to undermine Esther’s confidence. Is this just his way of getting

back at me, she wondered, or is he really up to something that is going to hurt me and

Mother? Once he had sprawled on the leather couch and asked her how she and her

priest were getting along. Did he satisfy her as well as John had? Esther answered in a

cold fury that John had better keep his mouth shut or get ready to move out and move on.

John had studied her for a moment in thoughtful silence, then got up and left.

Esther was shaken by these encounters and tried hard not to show it. She noticed that

the few times John didn’t make it home to supper were often on the day she paid him.

Since he didn’t seem to lack for money, she was sure he didn’t splurge it away, so it

couldn’t be because he was out on some big spending spree. Esther came to the

conclusion that John had an intuitive grasp of his effect on her and wanted to prolong it

by not showing up for supper on pay day. It’s as if he wants to show me he can still get

under my skin, she thought. His little rebellion, and of course on the day I give him

money. He doesn’t want me to get too comfortable in a position of control. I swear, I am

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tenser when he doesn’t show up than when he does, she pondered. He is really

impossible to ignore when he’s gone.

During the summer of Esther’s thirty-fourth birthday, Elaine died. Esther and Father

James drove up to the parish house in the pick-up. They had been to a local gas station to

have new tires placed on the truck. Sheriff Stromberg’s patrol car sat on the street in

front of the parish house. The sheriff himself leaned against the car smoking a cigarette.

“What’s up, I wonder?” remarked Father James as he parked the car. He got out and

walked toward the sheriff.

“Those things are bound to be bad for you,” he remarked jocularly, pointing to the

sheriff’s smoke.

Esther climbed out of the pick-up and greeted the sheriff.

“What in the world brings you here, Sheriff?” she inquired.

Sheriff Stromberg didn’t reply. He slowly urged his heavy frame from its leaning

position and came toward Esther and Father James. He took off his Stetson.

“Miss Esther, I thought you might need someone to drive you home, and I didn’t want

anyone else to give you the bad news. Miss Elaine took sick while she was alone in the

back yard doing something with her flower bed, and it looks like her heart gave out.

Your maids didn’t notice anything until María tried to find her to ask if she wanted iced

tea or lemonade for lunch, and there she was, on the ground. The girls went into a panic

and called me, and I called a doctor from Arroyo Colorado ‘cause old Dr. Elways was out

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of his office. Miss Esther, I am truly sorry. I’m here to take you wherever you need to

go.”

“Oh, Esther, what can I do for you?” asked Father James, stricken.

The irrelevant observation went through Esther’s mind that it was just like Sheriff

Stromberg to have the exact sequence of events at hand and ready to be told. Was María

to make iced tea or lemonade? Such an insignificant question, yet he had recorded it in

his mind as the prelude to a tragedy.

Esther was unable to speak. Father James took over.

“Where is the body, Sheriff?”

“Miss Elaine is at the house. Miss Esther, do you want me to drive you? I’m sure

Father James will be happy to drive your car home and I’ll give him a ride back here.”

Sheriff Stromberg accompanied his question with a gentle pressure on Esther’s arm.

She went with him to his patrol car as in a trance. Father James took her car keys and

followed in Esther’s Buick as the patrol car moved away, Esther’s upright silhouette

visible in the passenger seat.

Once more Esther bore up under the funeral rituals that to her seemed endless. There

were fewer people than came at her father’s death, since Elaine was respected but was

known to be a woman dedicated to her home, seen around town but little involved in

anything outside the narrow interests that concerned only her. But she was Yancey’s

wife, and respect was due her. She was buried beside Yancey in the town cemetery, and

Esther had the same kind of polished granite headstone put on Elaine’s grave. There’s

one more place left beside my parents, she thought. That will be for me.

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It was one morning a week after the funeral that the full horror of Esther’s position hit

her. She sat on the veranda with her coffee. The sun had just risen and there was still a

faint hint of coolness left over from the night. The fragrance of star jasmine wafted on a

gentle breeze that rustled through the lush foliage of the pecan trees. The starlings were

raucous as they greeted the day. In spite of her sadness, Esther soaked up the precious

moments of the summer morning, a time she had learned to love since childhood.

Until the thought came to her that she was now going to be alone in the house. With

John.

She had not realized the degree to which her mother’s presence had served as a

protection against that particular nightmare. Her mother, her companion, was gone. No

more at the dinner table, no longer to be with her on the veranda or in front of a cheery

fire.

With a jolt she thought of having to dine with John. Alone. In the past week, the

funeral and the visits from friends had upended the household routines, but now she

needed to release John from the part of their agreement that had existed only to maintain

a façade for Elaine. It would be the first thing on the agenda today, and as soon as John

got up, she would tell him he no longer had a reason to show up at supper.

Esther dreaded facing him, and as she thought about her fear, it occurred to her to invite

Father James to dinner, a sort of buffer between her and John. She discarded the idea as

soon as it came to her: John, she felt sure, would perceive the presence of another person

as weakness on Esther’s part, and take advantage of it. He might say whatever he wanted

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to say no matter who was present, and she couldn’t even be sure he wouldn’t insult

Father James in the bargain.

Suddenly a chill shook Esther in spite of the summer morning, and she went into the

dining room to finish her coffee. It dawned on her that she had been remiss. A wave of

nausea put her stomach in knots. She had been so confident of her father’s arrangements

to protect her that she had failed to protect herself. Esther had no will. Now that her

mother had died, if anything happened to Esther, or was made to happen, John would get

everything.

Esther barely took time to change into a summer dress and sandals. She grabbed her

car keys and purse and ran to her car. She had no appointment, but she wanted to be out

of the house and in San Antonio with her father’s lawyers before John even woke up.

She swore to herself that before the day was over, she would have a will safely in the

hands of legal counsel, a will that made sure John would never see a penny of her father’s

money.

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12.

Esther was forced to remain in San Antonio three days while Yancey’s lawyers—that’s

how she thought of them—drew up her will, made arrangements for a trust fund that

would effectively remove John from having any access whatsoever to the money even if

Esther died, and finished with all the signing and witnessing required. Esther had not

thought about what was to be done with the family money in the event of her death, but

she had to name a beneficiary. She finally decided that she wanted a fund set up to

support education in Cormorant Hill, a fund that would benefit worthy but needy students

with scholarships. She called it the Yancey Hutton Fund for Outstanding Educational

Achievement.

In the meantime, Esther phoned her house and left word with María that she would be

out of town for a few days, called Father James to let him know where she was and when

she would return, and proceeded to buy what she needed for her overnight stay at the

Menger Hotel.

By the time she returned to Cormorant Hill, she was rested, calmer and profoundly

satisfied with the idea of the scholarship fund. Whatever happened to her, her father’s

name would live on in the life of the town and in the lives of the students touched by the

fund’s generosity. Esther even daydreamed about changing the name of the local school

to the Yancey and Elaine Hutton School, but she realized the notion was unrealistic. It

was, nevertheless, a very pleasant fantasy.

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Esther entered the house after parking her car on the drive. The aroma of something

tasty floated through the house, and she hurried to the kitchen to see if there was anything

left. She suddenly felt ravening.

She was shocked to find John sitting at the dining room table, an empty dessert cup

before him, smoking a cigar. Consuelo came in to remove the last of the dishes and

immediately offered to bring a plate to Esther.

“It smells delicious, Consuelo, what did you make for lunch?”

Smiling with pleasure, Consuelo announced that her mother had pulled out all the stops

and made mole poblano, a dish of chicken served with a dark, complex sauce of various

chiles, sesame seeds, chocolate, and other mysterious ingredients. It was an acquired

taste, but once acquired, it became a passion. Esther asked for chicken breast and sat

down at the table.

“You’ll like it,” remarked John, “she made white rice and fresh tortillas. There’s one of

her fantastic custards for dessert.”

Esther remained silent.

“So, what have you been up to in San Antonio? Shopping?” He leaned back and pulled

at the cigar, sending smoke in a lazy ribbon toward the ceiling. He looked very self-

satisfied to Esther, and that made her uncomfortable. On the other hand, she knew how

little it took to make him feel that way. Maybe it was the excellent lunch.

“Not exactly,” replied Esther. She was not eager to give John the details of her

business there, but she wanted him to know that her death would not benefit him

financially. As the thought went through her mind, she admitted to herself that she

thought him capable of killing her. The idea was so unbearable that she tried to discard

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it, unsuccessfully. If this is what my so-called marriage has come to, she thought, it’s

time for it to end.

“I had to see the family lawyers. I set up a trust fund, in fact.” It was all Esther could

do to sound casual; her heart was racing, but she forced herself to go on. If she stopped

to think or feel, she wouldn’t be able to speak.

“I had to make arrangements for my money in the event of my death. It will go to a

scholarship fund for Cormorant Hill students, in my father’s name of course.”

She was afraid to stop long enough to hear what John might say. His expression was

still calm, perhaps with a hint of a smile. This is worse than I thought it would be, she

told herself, I could handle his outrage better than this suspicious equanimity. What’s he

up to?

“And I’ve been thinking, too, about us. There is no reason for us to be married, and I

imagine you would welcome your freedom. My parents are dead and there’s no motive

for our little charade any more. I suppose there never was,” she mused sadly.

John shifted in his chair and smiled at Esther.

“Does this mean I would get some kind of compensation for time spent?”

“Of course. Of course it does.” And happily, thought Esther, if I can buy your absence

with money, it is worth it at almost any price. Did I sound too eager? Have I shot myself

in the foot?

“Well,” said John as he rose and stretched, “that was an outstanding meal. And you’re

wrong, hon, my freedom, as you call it, is something I’ve had in the past, and it’s a piss-

poor excuse for being alive. I don’t hold with honest poverty, it’s one of those deals

people who can’t do any better for themselves like to think is virtuous. Like your Father

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James, for example. That’s fine for a priest, I suppose, seeing as how he has given up

everything else that’s worth having and costs money, like a woman in your bed. Nope,

not for me, thank you very much.

“You can always start divorce proceedings if that’s what you want to do, but I can make

it really unpleasant for you even if you win out in the end. And then there’s that little

matter of your father’s Mexican bastards, too. Maybe one of them can apply for your

scholarship, what do you think?

“On the other hand, if we go on like we are, you can count on my discretion. I know

where my meal ticket is, hon, and I don’t shit where I eat.”

John approached her, and Esther stood up to move away from him just as Consuelo

came in with Esther’s plate of food.

“Don’t worry, Esther, I have no intention of touching you. You really have to get a grip

on yourself. Let me know what you decide. I’m going into town, maybe we can talk

tomorrow.”

Esther sat down before her knees gave way. Consuelo’s command of English was still

shaky, so Esther was sure she had not really understood everything she heard, but

Esther’s emotional state was evident to anyone. Consuelo asked her if she felt all right,

and would she like her lunch on the veranda instead of the dining room?

Esther gratefully went to the veranda. Consuelo brought her a large glass of iced tea

and set her plate on the veranda table. She placed a cloth napkin by Esther and turned on

the ceiling fans. They spoke to one another in Spanish:

“Fresh tortillas,” she said, smiling shyly. “I made them.”

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“Thank you, Consuelo, this looks wonderful,” replied Esther, although much of her

appetite had fled. “And tell María the mole is stupendous. It’s such a special dish, why

did she make it, by the way?”

“Oh, Mr. John asked for it yesterday, it’s one of his favorite dishes. He wants salpicón

tomorrow for lunch. I think he plans to be home for lunch more often,” confessed

Consuelo with a grin, “he told my mother he would be working late most of the time but

he doesn’t want to miss her great cooking. Is that all right?” asked Consuelo with a small

frown of doubt.

“Yes, Consuelo, that’s fine when I’m not at home. Don’t worry about it. I’ll give María

the menu for the rest of the week later today and I’ll take you into town to shop if you

need groceries.” Esther was well aware of the traditional patriarchal values of Mexican

culture, and she knew she would have to establish very clearly she, not John, was in

charge. Otherwise his slightest whim would have María cooking feasts for lunchtime.

God, she thought, at least I’d be able to have supper alone. It might be worth it.

Esther managed to eat a little, then asked for coffee with the custard. She sat on the

veranda for what remained of the afternoon, thinking. The cicadas were riotous, and the

slow drone of a plane could be heard flying overhead. These were sounds that usually

lulled Esther into a delicious half-sleep as the ceiling fan stirred the air and the long

summer day seemed to last forever, but today it was not to be.

It was time, she felt, to face some hard truths and try to find solutions, or her life would

become a hell, and soon. She feared John. Bit by bit, any pretense of courtesy or

civilization had chipped away. He no longer took care with his language around her or

his attitude toward her in front of María and Consuelo. She had been unprepared for his

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refusal to divorce. She realized she had been naïve. Why would he willingly give up the

life style he had with her? He had all the money he needed—perhaps not all he wanted—

and could spend his time however he felt like it. It might be an easy task to fight out a

divorce in San Antonio with the team of lawyers at her disposal, but it was a whole

different tale when it came to the consequences for her here in her own town. She took

John at his word, at least in his threats. And why should he settle for a one-time payment

in exchange for a divorce if this way he could continue to receive money for the rest of

his life?

The idea of spending her life with John, even if he was mainly absent, was unthinkable.

Esther realized that in spite of her position of power as the source of money, John in

many ways had the upper hand on too many occasions during their conversations, and

she was sure that given enough time, he would think something up that would put her

under his thumb.

If he would just drop dead, she thought. I swear, if I could find a way to kill him

without getting caught, I would do it. It would be the perfect out, no scandal, no divorce,

just a demure widowhood for me and complete freedom.

Esther was slightly shocked to discover that what made the idea unacceptable was by

no means any feeling of moral wrongdoing or guilt, but the simple fact that she couldn’t

imagine how to go about murder and not get caught. It’s a matter of my survival, she

thought, of keeping what belongs to me, of eliminating a danger. I know in my bones

that it’s only a matter of time before John tries to get more money out of me. As soon as

he thinks I’m vulnerable, he is going to try it. It’s like living in a house with a rattlesnake

somewhere on the loose, wondering when and where it will strike.

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She felt alone and at loose ends. She had no one to talk to, no one she dared tell about

the real situation between her and John. She was demoralized to find herself so desperate

that she considered talking to Herrera, of all people. The other option was Father James,

but Esther couldn’t bear for him to know about the emptiness of her marriage and her

life. She suspected that Father James was perceptive enough to know something was

seriously wrong, but he was much too discrete to question Esther about any aspect of her

personal life. He knew only what little she had offered, and that had been almost

exclusively concerning her parents and her relationship with her father. How in God’s

name, she wondered, could I tell him I married a monster? Father James hasn’t got a clue

about how twisted a relationship can be. He would probably be so shocked he would

advise me to get a divorce, even though his religion disapproves of it.

Suddenly the lights came on in the veranda as Consuelo flipped the switch. It was now

dark outside. If Consuelo thought anything was odd about Esther sitting in the dark, she

said nothing. Esther rose and made her way to her room.

Lying in bed with the lights off and the French doors open to the veranda and the night

air filled with cricket song, Esther decided she would organize the last details left over

from Elaine’s death. First thing in the morning, she thought, I’m going to whip the house

in shape. Then I’ll go back to my work with Father James for a while. I need time to

think about what to do about John. In the meantime, I’ll try to avoid him. The less we

say to each other, the better.

All I need is a breather, she thought. Just a breather.

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During the next days Esther cleaned out the closets in her parents’ bedroom. Elaine had

not disposed of anything belonging to Yancey, so Esther gathered up his clothes and took

them to Father James. She also gave him the items in Elaine’s wardrobe that she didn’t

want for herself, even though many of the clothes were very expensive, some tailor-

made. She knew Father James would find worthy recipients, people desperate for decent

clothing. Father James seemed disconcerted to see the mounds of suits, pants, dresses,

coats, and shoes, but Esther assured him that it was what she wanted, that she was ready

to do this symbolic cleansing of objects that needed to go. She spent a whole morning

helping him separate the items into small bundles to be distributed the next time he made

his rounds in the countryside.

Esther decided to move into her parents’ room because it had a fireplace, but she didn’t

like the heavy furniture. Slowly but surely she changed the bedroom and sitting area into

a pastel-toned, soothing living space filled with the wicker furniture which was Esther’s

favorite because it reminded her of summer, a new four-poster bed with diaphanous

curtains surrounding it, and a thick rug over a tiled floor. Workers came and went as the

bathroom was modernized and the wallpaper removed, to be replaced by an ivory-colored

paper with small blue curlicues, pale green leaves, and tiny blue flowers with light golden

centers. For Esther, the renovation was an act of mourning and reparation.

The transformation took a while, and in the interim Esther continued to sleep in the

guest room. She had taken to having her lunch served there as well, because true to his

word, John got up in time for lunch at the house before heading off to whatever he did the

rest of the day and most of the night. Esther couldn’t help but feel that she was being

confined within her own home, a prisoner to John’s schedule, ousted from the routines

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she had known since childhood because of her fear of him. It was intolerable, but she

had no desire to face him until she had decided how to re-establish control. The sense of

being slowly and inexorably bereft of dominion in her house and her life wracked Esther

with anxiety.

The only temporary solution she could find was helping Father James. It kept her mind

off anything except the work in hand. Once more she became his partner as they drove

the long Texas roads to provide help to the scattered Mexican American families living

on small homesteads. Esther returned home tired but satisfied to dine in blessed solitude.

Autumn was approaching as one morning Esther drove up to the parish house to see

what work was on the day’s agenda with Father James. She felt a certain contentment

because now that the summer dwindled down to its last weeks, she would move into her

new room the next day. The cold wouldn’t matter there. She would be surrounded by

her favorite colors and furniture that captured the feel of summer even in the worst of

winter. And my beautiful stone fireplace, she thought. Mother would approve of what

I’ve done to the bedroom.

Father James opened the door and stepped out, waving to Esther. He was not smiling,

however, and didn’t have his Stetson on. Esther wondered what was wrong.

“Hello, Father James, what’s on today’s schedule?”

“Good morning, Esther. How’s the renovation going?” There was a touch of sadness in

his voice, and Esther was disconcerted.

“It’s officially done today, thank heavens. I move into the room tomorrow. Is

something wrong? You seem down in the dumps.”

“Esther, maybe we could sit out back. There’s something I need to speak to you about.”

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Esther never entered the parish house since this would have seemed improper. The

office beside the church was where Esther and Father James decided what was to be done

during the week. Esther had seen closets larger than the father’s office, but he refused to

consider her offer to enlarge it. Let the parishioners take charge of that responsibility, was

his reply.

It was an odd request that they sit in the back yard, and Esther began to worry. There

was no doubt that something was wrong now, and she wondered if Father James had lost

a close relative or one of his parents.

They seated themselves on a long wooden bench Sam Wilding had made for the father,

saying that anyone who did gardening needed a place to rest. The bench was shaded by

an old live oak. Its twisted branches seemed a petrified expression of some ancient

agony, long gone but preserved in the memory of living wood.

“Esther, I can’t tell you how much your help and your friendship have meant to me,”

said the priest. “This is my first assignment out of the seminary, and we are often sent to

some place that’s….well, I guess I could say ‘challenging’, but I think God-forsaken is a

better term!” His laughter sounded a little forced. “But I love this place, the people I’ve

met here, all of you have become my family. I would be happy to spend the rest of my

days here doing just what I do now, driving all morning, being out in all weathers,

providing some comfort to my parishioners. I guess I can say with a total lack of

modesty that I’ve made a difference. A great deal of that is due to you, you know.

You’ve even honed my language skills. I’ll never be able to thank you enough, but you

will forever be in my prayers.”

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An ominous cold filled Esther. She knew what Father James was trying to tell her, but

it was too much of a blow to take in. Please let it be something else, she groaned

inwardly. Let it be a death in the family, anything but this.

“Others seem to think I’ve done a decent job here too. What I’m trying to say, very

clumsily I’m afraid, is that I’m to be sent to another church. It’s in a city this time, I

suppose I’ll be helping another priest.” Father James finished speaking. Somehow it

didn’t seem to matter which city it was or what he would be doing there. He knew

intuitively how much pain his leaving would cause Esther.

“When are you leaving?” It was all Esther was able to ask. And who cares, she

thought, if it’s sooner or later, nothing can change what is going to happen. I can either

suffer immediately and get it over with, or hang around waiting for him to leave, like

some kind of deathbed agony. Dear God, do you really exist?

“Soon,” replied the priest, “but I hope you can find it in yourself to welcome whoever

takes my place. I know that sounds lame, but I just don’t know what to say to comfort

you. My greatest pain since I’ve been here is that I seem to be able to bring relief to

everyone except you, my closest friend and personal angel.”

She stared at Father James, tears starting in her eyes. So he had seen all along the extent

of her unhappiness, but he was too kind and discreet to pry since she never brought the

subject up herself. She felt stripped, all her pretense at domestic normality useless.

Esther stood up.

“Let me know if there’s anything you need. I think you’ll understand that I can’t come

back now.” She turned to leave, but after a few steps she faced Father James, who

remained, stricken, on the bench.

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“You have been my only friend.”

She ran to her car and got in, tears streaming down her face. She managed to drive

home, and she stayed in the parked car until she was able to stop weeping. The

foundation to her world had fallen away and yet she had to keep going somehow.

Exhaustion overwhelmed her. I’ve lost everyone now, she thought. This is rock-bottom.

She was to discover that there were worse things waiting for her.

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13.

Esther went to the guest room and began to gather up a few things to transfer to Yancey

and Elaine’s newly-refurbished bedroom. Only her bathroom items and night-time needs

—books, slippers, bathrobe, a nail file, and similar odds and ends, remained in the guest

room. The sets of new sheets and curtains she had purchased for her future bedroom

would be put in place in the course of the afternoon by Consuelo and María, and Esther

decided that of all days, today she needed the comfort of seeing this new project fulfilled

at last. There was no point in waiting until tomorrow to move into the room if everything

could be pulled together in the afternoon. She would help the women with the curtains—

there was now nothing more relevant for her to do with her time. She would no longer

grab a lunchtime sandwich with Father James as they toured the countryside visiting

parishioners or spend an afternoon in the church office organizing next weeks activities

so that enough time was left to Father James to prepare his Sunday services.

Esther viewed the coming days as an endless emptiness. More than depressed, she felt

herself becoming angry. What could she possibly have done to deserve what life had

handed her so far? Her parents dead before their time, married to a man who had never

loved her, her dearest friend taken from her when she needed him the most, no children to

provide a meaning to her life beyond herself. Somehow the crowning offense was the

fear of John that had led to a series of tactical retreats in her own house.

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It’s time for this to end, she thought. This is my home and my life, and I’m taking it

back. There was, at least, a worthy target for her accumulating rage.

As noon neared, Esther went to the kitchen to announce that she would be having lunch

at home more often than not, and had the girls stuck to the menu she had made up for

them this week? María giggled and said that Mr. John had only changed the food once,

asking for steak instead of the cheese enchiladas that had been programmed. Esther

decided not to make an issue of it; she didn’t need the maids watching the disaster that

was her sham marriage.

“Well, I’ll be home at lunchtime from now on, María, so any changes Mr. John wants,

I’ll let you know myself. By the way, I’ll be helping you with the curtains this

afternoon.”

María smiled. “I’m so glad, Miss Esther, I think Mr. John has missed you.”

Good Lord, thought Esther. It was obvious that this very traditional woman thought

Esther’s place was beside her husband. She would never have dared remark on it, of

course, and Esther had probably preserved a certain amount of face because her absences

were supposedly due to a dedication to the church—the women probably thought Esther

was on the verge of being converted to Catholicism.

Irony abounds, thought Esther as she turned away with a tired smile and left the

kitchen.

She decided to change into old slacks and shirt and begin unfolding the curtains in the

time left before lunch. She needed something to do to keep from thinking.

She was unpleasantly surprised to find John in the hallway outside the guest room door.

“What do you want?” she asked.

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“I was looking for you. What did you think I was doing here? Getting ready to rob

you?”

Esther ignored his remark and stood silently waiting for a reply.

“As a matter of fact, I was wondering if you could give me some extra money this

month. Not much, I think five hundred dollars should cover it.”

“Listen, I’ll be here for lunch from now on, so if you don’t mind we can talk about this

in the study afterward. That is where I write the checks,” she finished dryly.

“Fine, that’s fine. I’ll look forward to seeing you more often then,” said John with a

brilliant smile

Esther strode past him into the guest room. She decided that the less John managed to

provoke her into conversation, the better, and from now on it would be her policy to keep

quiet except for communicating the absolute bare essentials. Maybe we could learn sign

language she thought, and a sharp, bitter bark of laughter escaped her. She hoped John

had heard it. It was time for him to understand that the rules of the game had changed.

Esther put on what she thought of as her work clothes and decided to read the paper in

the dining room until the meal was served. Her stomach was tight with fury and she

needed to distract herself. Getting curtains ready to hang wouldn’t do it.

If Elaine had been alive, I wouldn’t have come to the table in these clothes, she thought

as she sat down and propped her feet on the adjoining chair. And I sure as heck wouldn’t

be putting my feet on a chair! Esther looked through the big windows, past the veranda,

to the sunny day, the quiet neighborhood, the trees barely beginning to shed leaves.

Nature had always soothed her. And this is my house, she thought. This is what I have

left.

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Pain and fury again threatened to overwhelm her. She didn’t want to think of Father

James or John. She didn’t want to think about anything right now. She opened the

newspaper and began to read.

Esther didn’t know how long she had been reading when John appeared and lunch was

served; she had successfully lost herself in the antics of Texas politics and the tragedies

of others.

Esther set the paper to one side and poured herself a glass of lemonade.

“I see we are no longer dressing for meals. Good idea if you ask me. ‘Course, I’ve

been in favor of comfy duds for a long time now.” John laughed.

In contrast to his remark, he wore a nice suit and tie. God knows where he goes

looking this good, thought Esther. Surely he doesn’t dress for those whores he keeps.

Well, she thought angrily, at least if they see him around town, he doesn’t look like a

bum. And I’ll bet anyone in Cormorant Hill could tell me what he does with his time.

The thought made Esther dizzy with rage.

Esther ate little. As they finished the meal, John asked if she wanted coffee.

“No, I don’t. Let’s go into the office. Bring your coffee if you want some.”

“Okay, I’ll skip it too. You know, Esther, you need to eat more. You don’t seem to be

taking very good care of yourself. I hope you aren’t upset because Father James is

being…what do they call it when they reassign priests, I wonder? There must be some

religious word for it.”

Esther decided to go on the offensive or she would be lost.

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“Don’t worry about my state of mind or body. I’m losing a dear friend, but you

wouldn’t understand something like that. It’s my problem, not yours, and shall we get by

without you pretending my condition matters to you?”

She rose and headed toward the study. John followed.

“You’re wrong there. I do care about your condition, as you call it. The reason should

be obvious.”

Esther made no further reply. She sat down at the desk as John took off his suit coat and

loosened his tie.

“I’ll give you the extra money you need. It’s not an insignificant amount, though, so

don’t think this is going to become routine. Maybe you should try to live within your

budget. It’s a very generous budget,” she added pointedly.

Esther wrote the check, handed it over, and left the room. She noticed that John

followed her, and she turned to look at him.

“Is there something else?”

“Would it just kill you to let me see what you’re doing to your part of the house, for

heaven’s sake?” John seemed genuinely irked.

Esther continued on to the guest room without answering. As she passed the door to her

new bedroom, she gestured elaborately to John, indicating he should go in and look

around. If it were possible to show sarcasm soundlessly, she had managed it.

Consuelo was already in the room putting sheets on the bed and spreading out the goose

down comforter. It still wasn’t cold enough for a fire, but Esther had stocked in logs for

the fireplace. The room was delightful.

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Esther could hear John bantering with Consuelo as she proceeded on to the guest room.

She flopped onto the bed to wait for John to leave.

She sat up with a jerk as John stepped into the room and closed the door.

“Esther, I’ve got to hand it to you, you have taste. That is the coziest spot in the whole

house. I can just see you cuddled up on a cold winter night, under that feather blanket, a

fire going like the dickens in the fireplace. Too bad you’ll be all alone in bed, but then,

that seems to be the way you want it.”

He sat on the bed and started taking off his shoes.

“What do you think you’re doing? Get out of here.” Esther’s voice was hoarse with the

tightness in her throat. “Consuelo is right next door.”

“Yes, she is, and she seemed rather pleased to see that your husband wants some time

alone with you, intimately, so to speak. I think the maids have been a little confused by

our domestic arrangements.”

Esther tried to get off the bed but John grabbed her arm in a vise-like grip. “Oh, come

on, Esther, don’t be like that.”

“I’ll scream,” she whispered.

John yanked her over to him and shoved her into the bed. He pushed a forearm against

her throat, just enough to make her feel what it would be like if he really applied some

pressure.

“Go ahead,” he replied coldly. “Do you think the maids are going to rescue you? Are

they going to call the sheriff? What would they say? That a husband and wife are having

sex? That’ll go over big.”

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Esther had been as if paralyzed, but now she kicked out, flailing her arms and hitting

John on the bridge of the nose in desperation. Taken by surprise, he gasped and released

his grip just enough for her to make it to the edge of the bed. Before she could stand up,

he grasped her by the hair and pulled her prone. His nose was bleeding, and blood

stained her shirt and the bedcovers as he slapped her hard.

“You make one more move, and I’m going to hit you with a fist,” he growled. “You’re

going to understand what pain is, and I don’t mean you losing your sniveling, prissy little

priest friend either.”

Esther realized he meant it. He was going to rape her, or he would beat her and rape

her. Either way, Esther was not going to be able to stop him. He was too strong, and

what he said about the maids was true. She either let him finish tearing off her clothes, or

she was going to be injured.

It seemed to take a long time. Long enough for Esther to feel that her scalp ached.

Long enough to realize that the whole left side of her face was stinging terribly. Long

enough for a dull pain to shoot up and down the arm he had grabbed.

Long enough for Esther to decide, as he finally pulled away from her and calmly

knotted his tie in front of her dresser mirror, that she would kill him.

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14.

Esther lay on the bed surrounded by the tatters of her clothing as her soul seemed to

empty out. In the hollowness left over, she was filled with a cold and rational

determination, fueled by infinite hatred. A kind of numbness protected her, giving her

mind time to forge vengeance from the raw materials of shame, horror, and self-loathing

that otherwise might have carried her away on a flood-tide of defeat.

Eventually she got up, her body aching, and went to the mirror. She saw an angry red

mark staining her skin where John had slapped her. Some of his blood was smeared on

her hair, neck, and one shoulder.

As she looked at herself, she was suffused with a peculiar pride. She had nothing to

fear from John. She recognized his limits now, she had felt them played out on her own

body, and she had survived.

But he would not, she thought, he would not.

Esther washed her hair and soaked long in a hot bath, trying to relieve her aches. She

dressed in woolen slacks and a light pullover. She took the last of her belongings into the

new bedroom, noticing that the curtains were now hung and wondering what the maids

had heard next door as they worked.

In the guest room, she gathered her torn clothing into a bundle to dispose of later. The

bedspread too had bloodstains from John’s nosebleed, so she stripped it off and added it

to the bundle. From a hall closet she chose one of the extra bedspreads and carefully

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made up the bed. She took up the bundle and the blood-spattered bedspread, gave the

room a final look, then shut the door.

In her new bedroom she closed the curtains against the dusk, turned on a bedside lamp,

and put the evidence of John’s attack on the closet floor behind her skirts and dresses.

She was amazed to find herself in a state near to euphoria. It was as if the vaguest and

most terrifying fear had materialized, only for her to discover that the reality was painful

but mundane, but a pale and paltry reflection of her frightful fantasies.

Esther went to the dining room around seven-thirty. She had not eaten all day. She

peeked into the kitchen through the swinging door to find a subdued and worried María

making a pot of coffee. Consuelo seemed to have been crying.

“Oh, Miss Esther!” cried María, “are you all right?”

“Of course I’m all right. Why wouldn’t I be? Can you heat up some leftovers or did

you make something for supper?”

María was confused and disconcerted, but she understood when a topic was closed.

She and Consuelo hurried to set the table and bring out the tiny roasted quails—a gift

from Sheriff Stromberg, who loved to hunt—corn on the cob, and braised carrots they

had cooked and then wondered if anyone would eat.

Esther knew both women carefully avoided looking at her injured face. She hoped they

would manage to keep it up when the bruising started, but it no longer bothered her.

They would never talk about what they had seen to anyone who mattered.

Esther said she would be working late in the study and wanted a whole pot of coffee

available. María seemed relieved to have something concrete to attend to, so she said she

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would immediately get Esther’s coffee and maybe add a tray of cookies if Esther thought

that would be okay.

“That’s a wonderful idea, María, I’ll be in the study.”

Esther turned on the desk lamp and another one beside the couch. She sat patiently

behind the desk waiting for María to arrive.

After María had left a tray with thermos, cup, sugar, creamer, spoon and a supply of

oatmeal cookies, Esther got up and locked the door. She poured her coffee, added milk

and sugar, and opened the locked cabinet that held the safe. From a drawer above the

safe she took out Yancey’s revolver. It was a Smith and Wesson .44. It seemed huge to

her but she was familiar with it and knew how to shoot it. That was one of those handy

ranching abilities Yancey thought everyone needed to have, male or female, but it was

years since Esther had shot the gun.

The gun was unloaded, and she left it that way. She shoved the box of ammunition

toward the back of the drawer, closed it, and locked the cabinet again.

She replaced the key on its chain around her neck and prepared to wait. While she

settled in with her coffee, something occurred to her. She immediately got up and went

to the kitchen where the maids had finished putting everything away and were getting

ready to leave for home. Esther addressed María in Spanish:

“María, before you go, I want to ask you something. Do you have any relative who

would like to work here mowing the lawn, things like that, you know, maybe general

maintenance? I’d pay a good wage and the work wouldn’t be too demanding, but I

would prefer someone who could live in the room over the garage. It hasn’t been used in

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ages, but I can fix it up. I know it’s hard to find someone who doesn’t have a family and a

home already, but just in case you know somebody who might be interested….”

María sat down at the kitchen table and thought. Suddenly she brightened.

“Maybe I do know someone. My nephew Santiago works as a mechanic at a gas station

over near Arroyo Colorado, but he spends a long time getting to work and coming back

again, and the station owner doesn’t have any place nearby where Santiago could live.

He’s living with me and my sister right now, but we’re pretty crowded. He’s 25 and a

really good worker, he can do just about anything. I can vouch for him, too, he’s a good

boy and takes care of his mother.”

“Why don’t you ask him tonight if he’d be interested in this job? I would even pay him

more if he’d do the upkeep on our cars, maybe he wouldn’t get too bored that way. But

tell him,” she warned, “that I will need him right away. I can’t wait weeks for him to

make up his mind.”

María and Consuelo left in good spirits, and Esther was sure they would be thrilled to

have a close relative working at the house. With Elaine and Yancey gone, the house was

too big and too empty to provide any sense of bustle or excitement, and Esther knew the

women could use more company.

Esther went back to the study. That’s one problem solved, she thought, if this young

man takes the job. And I’m sure María will give him an earful about how well I pay.

Unless I’m mistaken, and unless the guy turns out to be some kind of moron, this is a

done deal.

The night wore on. Esther turned off the study lights in order not to alert John to the

fact that she was still up, and she lay down on the couch. In spite of the coffee, Esther

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dozed from time to time, but she couldn’t really sleep because each movement caused her

body to jolt with pain. Finally she went to her bathroom to search for aspirin.

It was nearing three in the morning as she made her way toward the study. She froze

near the hallway as she heard the sound of a car drive up the gravel pathway. She made a

dash for the study and quietly closed the door. Her heart pounding, she grabbed the

Smith and Wesson and the coffee tray and took them to the tiny adjoining bathroom

where she left them on the floor and closed the bathroom door. She sat down on the floor

between one end of the couch and a bookcase, hoping the darkness of her small refuge

would be enough to hide her if John for some reason came into the study. She didn’t

think he would, but if he did, she wanted to be able to see what he did there. God forbid

he should turn on the lights….

Esther heard the front door open and close, and heavy footsteps lead away from the

study. John sounded slow and perhaps even clumsy, so she assumed he had been

drinking. She would give him maybe half an hour before following him.

In the meantime she retrieved the coffee tray and put it back on the desk, and she picked

up the gun.

The day’s events, all of them, seemed to be years in the past. Esther was astonished at

her own reactions. She could feel that underneath the icy hatred that moved her lay a

world of sensations she could not bear to allow herself to examine, terrible details made

up of John’s weight on her body, pain and suffocation, a destroying helplessness.

Most unacceptable of all was the remnant of desire and familiarity she had felt toward a

man some part of her had refused to believe could be what he really was. She knew

every contour of his body and face, but only today had she recognized his soul.

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If the person she was becoming was colder and more vengeful, Esther didn’t care.

Anything was better than passivity, and if it took hate to bring her to action, then she

wanted to feel only hate. A kind of bitter exultation invaded her.

Esther removed her shoes, took up the unloaded gun, and left the study. She walked in

the dark toward what had once been her home with John, their private part of the house.

She listened for over a minute outside the door to the bedroom, but nothing could be

heard except what might have been a gentle snoring. She opened the door, making no

attempt at caution. The curtains were open and moonlight bathed the room. She could

make out John’s figure on the bed, sprawled carelessly, the bedclothes a chaos. His

clothes lay on the floor. The stench of stale alcoholic breath filled the room as John,

gape-mouthed and on his back, slept naked in a drink-induced torpor.

It’s a damned miracle he even makes it home, Esther thought as she turned on the

overhead light. Suddenly she giggled at her own phrase—it’s a miracle, all right, but a

damned one.

John only moaned slightly and shifted as the light blazed down onto the bed.

Esther sauntered around the room, looking into drawers and picking up John’s wallet

from his suit pants on the floor. It was fat with cash. My God, he’s loaded, she thought.

What in the world does he do, gamble? Is he doing something illegal across the river?

Esther glanced into the bathroom, turned off the overhead light, and sat down on the

bed. She switched on a nightstand lamp on what had been John’s side of the bed when

they both occupied the room.

“John,” said Esther, putting her hand on his shoulder. He didn’t move. She

contemplated him. He is certainly a disastrously good-looking man, she thought with a

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detached rationality. She reached out gently to touch a bruise on the bridge of his nose in

a gesture that could have been mistaken for tenderness.

“John!” she shouted, this time shaking his shoulder hard.

John moved and uttered an unintelligible word or two, but his eyes didn’t open. He is

really out of it, thought Esther, let’s see what we can do about that.

With the glee of a mischievous child, Esther put the gun on the nightstand and skipped

into the little kitchen. She opened the refrigerator. I should have known there would be

no ice, she thought, he only uses this place to sleep and bathe.

She took a jug from the kitchen cabinet and filled it with cold water. Back in the

bedroom, she opened a window and let in the chilly air. She stood to one side and heaved

the contents at John, soaking the pillow, his face, hair, and part of the bedclothes.

As John struggled awake, barely able to open his eyes, Esther dropped the jug on the

floor and took up the gun. She sat down on the bed beside him and put the gun to his

forehead.

Something managed to get through to John.

“Esther?” he asked groggily.

“Why, yes, John, it’s your wife, Esther. See what I have here?” she asked, waving the

big gun before his face.

“Jesus Christ!” exclaimed John, trying to push himself toward the headboard, away

from her .

“No, John, you silly man, it’s a Smith and Wesson forty-four. I believe the gun you

just love to hear Marty Robbins sing about is a Colt from last century, known as the

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Peacemaker. Father has one of those as a kind of museum piece, but they aren’t very

functional. At least, not like this one.”

John was awake now. He tried to pull the covers up to his chin.

“John, John, John, for heaven’s sake, you weren’t this shy after lunch.” Esther jerked

the covers away from him and left him shivering.

Slowly Esther pulled back the hammer. The rough double click seemed to echo around

the room. She shoved the gun hard to his forehead once more. John winced at the pain.

“See my face, John? You did that. But nothing you did today will ever happen again,

will it, John?”

“No, no, Esther, I swear to God it won’t. Please, please….” John babbled, abject panic

reducing him to near incoherency.

Esther watched him impassively. She looked up and down his body, running a hand

along his side from armpit to thigh.

“Such a waste,” she said as she pulled the trigger.

John’s reaction was such that for a split second, Esther wondered if she had somehow

left a bullet in the chamber and in her fury had not heard the explosion of the discharge.

His eyes bugged out and he stopped breathing. He slowly managed to sit up, trembling,

and bent forward to vomit copiously over himself.

“Heavens! John dear, what a change from this afternoon!” Esther laughed. Then she

leaned in close to him, grimacing at the smell.

“Listen, you miserable piece of human ordure….do you know what ‘ordure’ means, you

unschooled cretin? Either you keep away from me, or you’d better kill me next time.”

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She raised her arm and smashed the gun across John’s face with the strength of a mad

woman.

I suppose I am mad, she thought as she left the bedroom.

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15.

Esther slept soundly until late in the morning, almost noon. She was relieved to find

that her aches and pains were no worse than the night before.

She dressed quickly in jeans, Keds, and a plaid woolen shirt. After a trip to the study to

lock up the Smith and Wesson again, Esther went to the dining room. When María came

in with her coffee, Esther asked if John had left the house yet.

“No, Miss Esther, his car is still here and he hasn’t had anything to eat yet. I think I

have good news,” she added happily. “My nephew Santiago is waiting outside so you can

talk to him and see if he is the kind of person you are looking for to help out.”

“Then let’s not keep him waiting any longer. Where is he?”

“He’s sitting outside the kitchen on the steps, Miss Esther. I hope you don’t mind, I

gave him some coffee and tortillas de harina.”

“Of course not, María, if he comes to work here he’ll be taking his meals with you and

Consuelo. It’ll be nice for you two to have some company.”

Esther opened the kitchen door and a young man immediately stood up from the steps.

She could see the family resemblance. He was a bit stocky but seemed strong, with a

confident smile and firm handshake. His brown eyes looked into hers with an honest

directness she liked. Something about him reminded her of a North American Indian,

maybe Navajo.

They spoke for over half an hour. Santiago seemed intelligent and willing. The pay she

was offering would have tempted anyone, and Esther liked the fact that Santiago wanted

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to know everything he would be expected to do. She emphasized that he would be in

charge of car maintenance, and Santiago said he enjoyed working around cars. Esther

thought for a moment, then asked if he had a driver’s license. Santiago said he had never

owned a car, but he knew how to drive just about anything and had his license.

“Good,” said Esther. “There is a pick-up in my name over at the parish house of Our

Lady of Sorrow. I’ll give you the car papers, you go over there when you get a chance

and bring the pick-up back here. The priest there is leaving, but if he still needs the truck,

ask him when you should get it. Have him call me if he has any doubt about you working

for me. Then that will be your vehicle to use for as long as you work here.”

Santiago broke into a wide grin.

“Thank you, Miss Esther. I will do a good job, you’ll see.”

“Santiago, there is one other thing. I hope you can move into the room over the garage

at the latest the day after tomorrow. The girls and I can get it fixed up by then.”

“Don’t worry, Miss Esther, I can move in tomorrow, and I will help María and Consuelo

with whatever needs to be done today, if that’s all right with you.”

“Excellent, then. I’ll supply sheets, towels, anything you might need. But there is

something I want to make clear to you, Santiago. My husband does not make the money

around here. The money is mine and I decide everything that has to do with it. I am the

one who will be paying your wages, and you will answer only to me. If there is

something my husband wants you to do, you ask me first if it’s okay, unless it has to do

with fixing his car.

“And if you should ever think for any reason that…maybe I’m being attacked, or there

is an intruder in the house, you come running. My husband comes home very late at

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night, or maybe I should say in the small hours of the morning, but pay no attention to

whether he is home or not. If I should scream or cry for help, I want you to come to the

house immediately. That means,” she finished sternly, “that I won’t permit you to drink

on the premises and sleep like the dead as a result.”

If Santiago thought these conditions were strange, he did not indicate it with his

expression. He may think I’m just a wealthy, frightened woman, thought Esther, which is

just fine with me. On the other hand, she thought dryly, maybe my bruised face is

explanation enough.

She went back into the kitchen and told the maids that Santiago would be helping them

get his room ready, so they could start immediately. She would make herself a sandwich

or eat leftovers to give them time to finish the job, and she indicated which sheets,

towels, and bedspread they could use to furnish the room. She asked Santiago to carry up

a spare space heater since the room was bound to be cold. As the girls and Santiago

hauled brooms, mops, dusting rags, and the heater toward the garage room, they carried

on a lively and happy chatter.

Oh, if only you knew, John, she thought. Just you dare try something with a man

around the place. It won’t be so easy next time.

Esther finished her coffee and made herself a tuna sandwich. As one-thirty came

around, she began to wonder about John. A chill of fear brushed her as she wondered if

she had inadvertently killed him when she slammed the gun into his face. She wanted

him dead, all right, but not in such a way that she would wind up in jail.

When by two-thirty there was still no sign of him, Esther went down the hall and into

his bedroom. The smell of vomit hit her like a slap.

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John was sitting in a chair dressed in jeans, loafers and a casual shirt. He rested his head

against the chair back and held a washrag to his face. He dragged the rag away from his

face tiredly when he heard the door. Esther strode to a window and opened it wide to let

air into the room. John must have closed it after I doused him, she thought. Man, it

would have been cold in here last night when I left!

She turned to John, who looked at her with a mixture of fear and anger, but mostly pain.

Esther couldn’t help being shocked at what she had done to him. One eye was swollen

closed and there was a deep cut on that side of his face over his cheekbone. Apparently

his nose had bled again; she saw blood on the sodden pillow.

“Wait here,” ordered Esther. She walked quickly to the main kitchen and shook out ice

cubes into a dishcloth. She scrounged around in her bathroom until she located an ice

bag and filled it with the cubes. She thought a minute, then took a bottle of aspirin with

her too. She put the aspirin in her jeans pocket, stopped again by the kitchen to pour a

mug of coffee, and returned to John’s bedroom.

“Here,” she said, taking the rag from John and pressing the ice bag onto his swollen

face, “hold this.” She put the coffee and bottle of aspirin on the table by John’s chair.

Esther stripped off the sheets and pillow case and pulled the bedspread to the foot of the

bed, letting most of it hang onto the floor. She picked up John’s suit, hung it up, and put

his shirt and underwear into the hamper in the bathroom. She smoothed his tie and

draped it carefully over a hanger. The sight of the tie gave her stomach a lurch; suddenly

she saw him standing in front of her mirror in the guest room, knotting it. She stopped

for a moment to catch her breath.

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She knelt by John’s chair and took up the coffee. She poured three aspirin into her

hand.

“You’d better have this, you’re going to feel much worse later in the day.”

John washed the aspirin down with the coffee.

“Why are you doing this?” he managed to say, his voice hoarse.

“I believe I’ve become something of an expert at removing the evidence of violence,”

she replied. “No need for anyone to find out about our…what did you call it yesterday?

….yes, our confusing domestic arrangements. I’ll be back in a minute. Don’t go

anywhere,” she added brightly.

Esther went back to the kitchen and made a sandwich for John. Aspirin and coffee on

an empty stomach weren’t a good idea.

Back in the bedroom, she told John to eat the sandwich. She found clean sheets and a

spare pillow in the bathroom storage closet. The feather pillow he had bled on was a total

loss and would have to be thrown away.

Esther pulled up a wicker chair and sat down next to John.

“It’s almost like old times, except that you never sat with me,” she remarked. “You’ll

have to leave the bed to air out until tonight. With a little luck it will dry out and I’ll

make it up later. I assume you won’t be using it any time soon.”

“Are you crazy?” croaked John. “I can’t go anywhere like this. I need to brush my

teeth,” he added, as if that were the only reason he couldn’t leave the house.

“One thing I’ve always liked about you, John, you are a stickler for personal

cleanliness. Can you stand up?”

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“I don’t know, I’ve been sitting here since I got dressed God knows how long ago, and

I feel like the room is spinning.”

“I’ll help you, come on, let’s try to get you to the sink.”

He looked at Esther with his one good eye and a flash of fear crossed his face.

“Do you still have that gun on you?” he asked suspiciously.

Esther issued a peal of laughter.

“You mean am I armed?” she grinned. “Not right now, don’t you worry about where

the gun is.”

She stood and helped John gain his feet, but she could feel him swaying. She waited

until he steadied, then put an arm around his waist and slowly guided him to the

bathroom. She put toothpaste on his brush and handed it to him.

“Jesus Christ,” he moaned as he looked at himself in the mirror.

“What a coincidence,” chirped Esther, “you said that same thing last night! You’re

wrong this time, too.”

“God damn it, Esther!” John straightened up over the sink too fast and had to grab the

rim to keep from falling. He couldn’t believe his senses to find that Esther had bent

down and slipped under his arm, facing him now and pressed against him, her back to the

sink.

“You know, John,” she said as she gently touched the swollen side of his face as she

looked up at him, “the only thing you understand is power. There must be some kind of

category for you in the mental health books.”

Esther put her arms around his waist and pulled him toward her.

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“I told you last night you had better not touch me ever again, but now that I think about

it, maybe we should change that rule. I may want to use you from time to time…right

now, for instance. After all, I am footing the bill, we might say, and it would be a shame

not to get something of what I’m paying for. I know others are getting plenty of you.

Imagine how much easier everything is now that we know exactly where we stand.

Surely you don’t want to leave me with the unfortunate impression of yesterday,” she

added darkly, her voice cold.

She stood on tiptoe to plant a kiss on his mouth.

“I can’t, Esther, I can’t now, look what shape I’m in.”

Esther, knowing it was typical for John to think he was so irresistible that no woman

could see him and not want him, nevertheless was amazed to find just how disconnected

he was from reality and other people’s feelings. He actually thinks I mean this, she

mused in astonishment.

“You won’t have to do anything, John, I’ll do it all. I’ll be careful with your face. Such

a really wonderful face, too, under ordinary circumstances,” she said lightly, touching his

swollen cheek again very gently.

“You’re crazy,” he whispered, trying to back away from her. He was unsteady, but

again Esther grabbed his waist and this time guided him to the damp mattress. She

grabbed a pillow to shove under his head and helped him lie down.

“I hope you don’t mind if I shut the curtains. We have a new employee, a man, who’s

going to take that apartment over the garage. He and the girls are cleaning the place up,

and they can see us from where they are. You know how modest I am,” she added.

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Another wave of fear passed over John’s face as Esther closed the curtains. He

probably thinks I’m going to castrate him, she thought. He really is helpless right now, I

must have done more damage than I thought. Let’s see how he likes total humiliation.

“I know for a fact this is going to hurt you more than it does me,” she trilled happily as

she began to unbutton John’s shirt.

“Esther, please,” John pleaded, “I meant what I promised last night, I’ll never hurt you

again.”

“Of course you won’t, John, I believe you. What do you think I’m going to do to you?

Can’t you understand I only want you for sex?”

John grabbed his shirt to keep Esther from undoing more buttons. Esther was so

surprised by the prudishness of the gesture that she couldn’t refrain from laughter.

“Good grief, you’re as timid now as you were last night. Okay, I guess that will do it,”

she said matter-of-factly as she stood, retrieved the coffee cup and sandwich plate, and

headed toward the door.

“I’ll leave the aspirin,” she said icily. “You’ll be needing it. If you get hungry, María

has some quail left over from last night. The girls won’t be cooking today because

they’re getting that room spruced up. You’ll like the new employee, he can tune up your

car for you.”

Esther made her way to the main kitchen and left the dishes in the sink. She was a little

shaky in spite of her show of confidence. She was not sure how John would ultimately

react to the day’s happenings, but he couldn’t be any more dangerous than he already

was. And as long as he wanted to live comfortably, she had to be alive.

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The next day Santiago moved in, much to the undisguised pleasure of the maids.

Esther wished she could join the three in the kitchen as they laughed and ate, but it would

have thrown a damper over their pleasure. The patrona simply didn’t hobnob with the

help, in their view, and Esther had never developed the kind of egalitarian style she

envied in others who seemed to get along with everyone regardless of social class.

She had never felt so alone, eating in refined elegance in the dining room while

Santiago and the women shared food and companionship.

In the afternoon Santiago reported his intention of visiting the parish house to find out

what the situation with the pick-up was, and Esther dreaded his report.

He returned driving the truck, and Esther had not expected such a stab of pain upon

seeing it. She went out the front door and waited for Santiago to park the vehicle.

“Miss Esther,” said Santiago as he climbed out of the cab, “Father James is still here but

he said he will be leaving in the next four or five days, and he needs to get everything in

order for the new priest. He won’t be using the pick-up, so he wanted me to bring it back

to you. He asked me to give you this,” he said as he handed her an envelope, “and he

says he thanks you for your support of the church all this time.”

Esther took the envelope and thanked Santiago in a strained voice. She hurried to her

room to read the letter, surprised to see that John was in the dining room trying to get

down some soup. If anything, he looked worse than the day before. He saw her but said

nothing. I wonder what the maids thought about his face, thought Esther with a snort of

laughter. She had to stop for a moment to control the attack of giggling that threatened to

turn to sobs as she imagined the maids wondering if she and John spent the dead of night

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duking it out with each other. Let’s lay in a supply of cast iron skillets and we can really

go at it, she thought as a wave of hysteria threatened to swamp her.

Esther closed the door to her bedroom and sat on her bed. She tore open the envelope

with shaky hands and began to read the letter.

“Dear Esther,

I realize what a mistake I made by allowing my cowardice to keep me from telling you

about my transfer as soon as I knew about it, but I didn’t know how. All I can say is that

I will pray for you, and I hope you will pray for me. After all this time, I realize I don’t

know what you believe about God, but if indeed works are the measure of a person, you

must be very close to Him. Perhaps you don’t believe so, but I am convinced of it.

There is no way for me to thank you for what you have done for our little church or for

the people who have been helped by your generosity. I hope that God in his wisdom

brings you a just reward for all you’ve done. I feel certain in my heart that he will.

I am sending you the pick-up with Santiago, who seems like a fine young man. He

asked me to hear his confession and bless his efforts in his new job. I’m sure he will be a

great help to you.

My dear friend, it is so difficult to say goodbye. As soon as I get settled, I will send

you my address. I hope that you will want to write to me, as your friendship encourages

me to do my best for those who need me. My fervent hope is that some day I will be able

to come back to Cormorant Hill to say hello to you and all my parishioners, for this place

will always be more special to me than any other, my first parish and my first church.

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My replacement, Father Edward Hiller, will arrive next week. I have left your phone

number for him in the hope that you will find it in your heart to welcome him as you

welcomed me. You will be glad to know that he speaks Spanish, so you won’t have to

struggle with him as you so kindly did with me and my poor grasp of the language.

Yours in God,

James McCray”

Esther crushed the paper in her hand and threw it and the envelope into the trash can.

Agony surged up like a black tide. Father James was even farther away than ever she had

thought possible. She was no longer the person he spoke to in his letter. It was like

reading a message she had intercepted, written to a stranger.

Goodbye, James, she thought. Esther has left too. You’ll never find her again.

Esther thought about Father James in his Stetson, and burst into tears.

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16.

A kind of tense peace set in. In contrast to the happy sociability of the maids and

Santiago, Esther and John crossed paths in silence. Since John refused to leave the house

until his face healed, they coincided for meals each day. Esther refused to banish herself

to her room again to eat in solitude, and John seemed immune to her presence. He would

offer a brief greeting, and the rest of the time he was silent. Several times Esther looked

up to find him watching her. His expression was difficult to read. A definite note of

caution had finally entered their minimal exchanges on his side, but Esther detected no

fear. It disquieted her; she knew John was possibly incapable of fearing her because she

was a woman—except, of course, when he thought she was going to shoot him or do him

some other form of bodily harm. As a means of controlling him, that tactic was

completely impractical.

Esther realized that her lack of experience in matters legal and criminal left her

disarmed. She had no idea how to get rid of John and remain free from suspicion, but she

had learned that something would occur to her eventually if she remained patient and

careful.

As the autumn days slipped into the cold of winter, John began leaving the house again

after lunch in his usual routine, but Esther noticed that he came home earlier, midnight at

the latest. It took this small but significant change in his behavior to convince Esther that

she needed to know what he was up to. It was a matter of simple self-defense, she

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thought. I can’t go on not knowing what he’s doing, no matter how safe I may think I

am.

Esther placed a call to Albert Herrera’s office, and the secretary promised Herrera

would contact her before the day was over.

It was little more than an hour later when the phone rang and Esther heard the well-

remembered voice of Herrera.

“Mr. Herrera, how are you? I’m Esther Bainbridge, do you remember me? I’d like to

hire you again, if you think you have the time.”

“And how are you, Mrs. Bainbridge? Of course I remember you. What can I do for

you?” As usual, Herrera sounded slightly sad and low-key. I guess he would, thought

Esther, his is not a happy job.

“Mr. Herrera, to be frank, I think my husband is involved in something illegal on the

Mexican side of the border. For all I know, he could be doing something illegal on this

side. My family’s reputation is at stake. My husband and I are planning to separate,” she

lied, “but until we work out the financial side of a divorce, which is going to take a while,

I’d rather he not wind up arrested somewhere, or worse.”

“I see. It’s been a few years since we met, and since then my rates have gone up a

little. If you accept the costs, I could start this week. We could make the same

arrangements for communicating as we did the last time. There’s no need for an advance

payment. As a former client, your word is enough.”

“Thank you so much, Mr. Herrera. I’m sorry to say that since we last saw each other,

both my parents have passed on. The house is mine and except for John and the hired

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help, I live alone. You can phone me here at any time, and any meetings we have can

also take place here. That should make things much easier.

“Whatever you are charging is fine with me. As for John, he leaves the house after

lunch, which we eat between twelve-thirty and one-thirty, more or less. My father sold

the ranch before he died and the office he had downtown is gone, so you’d have to follow

John from the time he leaves here. I have no idea where he goes or what he does, so I

can’t even give you a clue.

“By the way, I have an employee who lives in an apartment over the garage, so be

careful he doesn’t mistake you for someone watching the house with robbery in mind.”

Herrera might have been talking to a different woman. The voice and well-bred style

of speech were the same, but there was a determination, perhaps even a coldness, that

seeped through the language. Some might have thought it was a result of maturity and a

greater worldliness, but there was something about it that Herrera found unpleasant. He

couldn’t put his finger on what was wrong yet, but Esther seemed to have changed in a

bad direction. Maybe, he thought, she made the wrong choices when she first discovered

her husband’s faithlessness. In his experience, women who forgave too much often

ended up embittered by the thanklessness of those they forgave. Maybe that was her

problem.

Herrera expressed his belated condolences and promised to contact her as soon as he

had any information of value. Esther hung up the phone and was about to leave the study

when the phone rang again. An unfamiliar voice asked for Esther Bainbridge.

“This is she,” responded Esther.

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“Mrs. Bainbridge, I’m pleased to meet you even if it’s only over the phone. My name is

Father Hiller, I’m here at Our Lady of Sorrow church and I wondered if I could come

over to talk to you.”

Esther’s heart seemed to lurch in her chest.

“Father Hiller, I’m afraid this is not a good time. Why don’t you call after the New

Year?” Esther’s tone of voice left no room for doubt. It was all she could do not to hang

up the phone before the man had a chance to reply.

“Well,” said Father Hiller with evident disappointment, “I was hoping we could meet

sooner, but I’ll wait until next year.”

There was the subtlest hint of a whining sourness in his voice, a resentment implicated

in that “until next year” that Esther did not like. She hung up the phone without another

word. Hiller sounded older than Father James, perhaps close to forty, maybe more. He’s

probably been at the job long enough to rack up plenty of disappointments, thought

Esther cynically, no wonder he sounds sour. She wondered dispiritedly why he had

waited so long to contact her, but she was glad of it. The less of him the better, she

thought.

It was over three weeks later that Herrera called Esther. They arranged to meet the

following afternoon at Esther’s house

At the appointed time, Herrera drove up in a non-descript pick-up and Esther ushered

him into the study. She noticed that he was beginning to gray a little, but his skin was as

free of wrinkles as ever and he had the same kind brown eyes. He shook her hand

warmly, accepted the coffee Esther offered, and sat in a chair in front of the desk.

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Esther leaned forward and rested her elbows on the desk. She looked at Herrera.

“I think a verbal report is enough, Mr. Herrera. I guess if you are as efficient as usual,

though, you’ve got one already written up.”

Herrera smiled.

“Yes, I do,” he stated, placing a fat envelope in front of Esther. “There isn’t a great deal

to report. Mr. Bainbridge has changed his former arrangements and now only pays for

the upkeep of the younger call girl I located on my last visit. I think he’s smuggling

liquor into Mexico by paying off a couple of customs agents and selling it in Ciudad

Meseta, but this doesn’t seem to be any big-time operation. He is gambling, though,

mostly cards and illegal cock fights, and he seems to do rather well.

“I think there is a chance he is also smuggling drugs in very small quantities into the

U.S. He has a certain degree of, shall we say, respect if not prestige, because he’s

married to you, and he’s been smart enough to remain low key. I don’t think it’s any

kind of big-time operation either, but it is much more profitable. He seems pretty flush

with cash most of the time, so I suspect it’s heroine. This is a very risky area of

investigation, Mrs. Bainbridge, on both sides of the border, and considerably outside my

usual line of inquiry, so I’m afraid I can’t give you much in the way of hard facts. I

struck up a friendship with a new deputy in the sheriff’s department, and it doesn’t look

like John is suspected of anything on this end. On the other hand, unless it was

something blatant, I’m not sure Sheriff Stromberg would want to give you any misery

over it. I think Mr. Bainbridge is taking advantage of Stromberg’s tendency to…um,

well, protect your family’s good name. It never fails to amaze me,” mused Herrera, “how

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much people are willing to gossip about others in a small town, and how little is ever

done about what people are getting in to. Must be the entertainment value.”

Herrera brought himself up short, realizing he had overstepped himself and regretting

that he had.

“I understand this is not very satisfying, but it isn’t just speculation on my part either.

But since I can’t prove anything, I’d rather not make a bald statement about your

husband’s activities. And, as far as I can tell, this seems to be about it.”

Esther thought for a few moments before replying.

“Is he in danger across the river, do you think, if he’s dealing in heroine?”

“I would have to say he is, but again, this is my own appreciation of the situation.

Something can always go wrong. On the other hand, he doesn’t strike me as a careless

man, and like you said, he’s home by midnight usually, and I expect he’s safer here than

across the river.”

Esther pulled open a drawer.

“Let me write you a check, Mr. Herrera. And thank you.”

Herrera finished his coffee in a single gulp and left, once more feeling that whatever he

had done for Esther, he had somehow failed. He had seen plenty of cases where wronged

women stuck by their cheating and no-good husbands, but the women were rarely in the

privileged position occupied by Esther.

Herrera had gotten a bit more information than what he had reported. He knew from

local gossip that Esther was the one with the money, all of it. Bainbridge was a kept

man. He was unfaithful and used her money to keep his prostitute. What in the world

induced Esther to keep him around? Perhaps she couldn’t bear an open scandal, or

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maybe it was having a man that good-looking in her bed, thought Herrera, disgusted.

Somehow he had entertained a better impression of Esther than that, but it looked like he

had been wrong.

Won’t be the first time, won’t be the last, he thought sadly as he took the road out of

town and headed away from Cormorant Hill.

Esther put the envelope in the safe, then sat in the study and thought about what Herrera

had told her. It all rang true, but it still didn’t really explain why John was spending more

time at home, and that was what worried her. There is only one possible reason, she

thought. He wants to be near me in order to keep tabs on me, and if he wants to do that,

then he’s planning something. I guess now we’ll spend our time watching each other.

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17.

Christmas came, and it was a dismal affair for Esther. María and Consuelo put up a tree

and decorated it with Santiago’s help, and in their enthusiasm they even broke out the

extra Christmas lights and strung them around a cedar in the front yard. The women

produced several dishes to store in the refrigerator so that John and Esther would have a

nice Christmas dinner since Esther had given the three of them all the days off between

the twenty-fourth and the second of January.

She felt secure enough to spend the days alone with John, assuming that he might be

around. On the twenty-third she had phoned Sheriff Stromberg at quarter to twelve in the

morning to say she had seen someone walking through the yard the night before, and the

sheriff drove up in his patrol car at noon. He had a deputy in tow in another patrol car.

Esther had timed it well. John was up and in the dining room when the officers arrived.

Since he no longer stayed out until all hours, he was getting up earlier too.

Esther walked out to meet them and the three toured the grounds as Esther described her

fictitious prowler’s nighttime movements. She made sure they passed the dining room

windows. When the sheriff left, he and his deputy had promised to make some extra

rounds now that Esther’s household help would be gone.. Esther assumed this was the

deputy Herrera had mentioned because she had never seen him before.

Esther went into the dining room to read the paper before lunch was served.

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“What was that all about?” asked John.

“Nothing special,” Esther answered mildly. “You know the sheriff is an old friend of the

family, he always likes to come around when he sees I’m going to be alone in the house.”

John made no reply. He watched Esther as if expecting her to add more. Esther looked

at him.

“What?” asked Esther over the paper.

“Well, it’s just that I thought I’d stay here most of the time. Maybe we could at least

have some champagne and eat what the girls made for us.”

John never quits, thought Esther, but I’m not buying this let’s-kiss-and-make-up act of

his. If he had anything except concrete in his head, he would understand that I can see

through him now. But I’ll play along.

“Sure, why not? You get the champagne tomorrow and I’ll heat up the food around

seven.”

She went back to the newspaper until lunched was served.

The days passed without incident. When John was home, he and Esther seemed like a

couple that had settled into the routine of a long and boring marriage: they rarely spoke

when together, and they were together as little as possible.

It was near the end of the first week in January on a particularly cold afternoon, as

Esther read in the study, that she was surprised to see a strange car pull into the driveway.

Her surprise turned to irritation as a priest climbed out of the driver’s seat.

He was probably around forty, somewhat overweight, and not very tall. He plodded

toward the front door.

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Esther opened before the man could ring the door bell.

“Yes, can I help you?” she asked, knowing full well who it was.

“Mrs. Bainbridge? I am so very pleased to meet you!”

Hiller’s handshake seemed to indicate that he thought she might want to kiss it, as if he

had been a church dignitary. Up close, he was rather ordinary-looking, except for his

close-set eyes and peculiar smile that came across as a smirk because one side of his

mouth went up and the other dragged down. Esther thought immediately of Bob

Jameson’s succinct remark one day, commenting on a state politician Yancey had had as

a guest at the ranch one weekend: “Stoat-eyed sumbitch, aint he?” Yancey had guffawed

and slapped Bob on the back.

“By God, Bob, you hit the nail on the head!” had been his reply. Bob had never said

much, but when he did, it was usually to the point.

“I’m Father Hiller,” announced the priest, his tone implying that Esther would no doubt

be impressed.

“I imagined as much. As long as you’re here, you may as well come into the study out

of the cold,” she remarked ungraciously.

“Thank you, my dear, it is nippy, to be sure.”

It dawned on Esther that Father Hiller must believe her to be a Catholic. He seemed to

expect her to be more servile somehow, and the inappropriate “my dear” sounded like

something he might use on the female members of his little flock.

As she led him toward the study and called for Consuelo to bring them coffee, she

noticed that Father Hiller looked around the house appreciatively.

“You have a lovely home, Mrs. Bainbridge,” he stated.

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“Thank you. Why don’t you take the chair in front of the desk, please?” Her

suggestion was more an order than an option.

Esther sat behind the desk and looked at the priest, who scanned the generous

bookshelves and good furniture.

“It’s always a pleasure to meet a parishioner with cultured tastes and a joy of reading.”

“Yes,” replied Esther, “I’m sure it must be. I, on the other hand, am not a parishioner

nor a Catholic, so you may be laboring under a misapprehension.”

The priest’s face fell.

“Oh, my goodness, I must have read too much into Father McCray’s idea that I should

get in touch with you. Several of my parishioners speak very highly of you indeed, so I

naturally assumed…”

“No, I helped Father James in my spare time.” Esther didn’t know if this man knew

exactly how much she had helped, but she was not going to enlighten him if he didn’t.

Consuelo brought in the coffee, and Esther was irritated by the priest’s attitude, as if he

was used to having people wait on him because he somehow deserved it. Esther made a

point of thanking Consuelo, as she always did, but the gesture didn’t seem to register on

Hiller. He took his coffee cup from Consuelo without looking at her. Your servants are a

motley crew, God, thought Esther, and this one is a rough come-down from James.

The man is odious, concluded Esther.

Suddenly John walked through the study door.

“Esther, I wonder if….Well, who have we here?”

“This is Father Hiller, Father James’s replacement. Father, my husband.”

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John seemed unimpressed and certainly unconcerned. He shook the limp hand Father

Hiller offered. At first John examined the man indifferently, but then a knowing grin lit

up his face.

“I guess you know how much my wife helped out at the church. You guys even owe

her the comfort of the parish house. You should have seen the dump you people had to

live in before she took matters into her own hands.”

What is he up to, wondered Esther, frowning.

“Heavens, I wasn’t aware of that!”

Something in his tone of voice and his expression made Esther sure that he actually had

known. He’s some kind of petty con artist, she thought. John is doing this just to give

me a hard time, he’s recognized a brother under the skin in this priest.

John laughed and turned away. He had already forgotten about the other man in the

room.

“Talk to you later, hon.”

If Father Hiller felt slighted by what amounted to a dismissal on John’s part, he hid it

well. He turned back to Esther.

“Mrs. Bainbridge, it is even more to your credit that you helped a congregation that is

not even your own. I hope,” he said coyly, smirking again, “that I can count on your

guidance and charity just like Father James could.”

Esther rose.

“I’m afraid I’m busy with other matters, Father.” Even though she realized this priest

was reaping the rage that was John’s due, she couldn’t stop herself. She was not sure she

even wanted to stop. The very sight of this man was an offense.

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“I’ll show you to your car. I’m sure you don’t need my guidance, and as for charity,

Father James was the charitable soul and should get all the credit. I suppose he did get

the credit, he’s gone on to bigger things, I understand.”

Hiller’s face darkened. Esther led him to the front door and held the screen door open

for him. It was evident she was not going to step out of the house.

The priest made an effort to smile as he stepped onto the porch. He turned toward

Esther.

“Thank you for your time, dear lady. I was wondering, I understand that you bought a

vehicle and put it at the church’s disposal. Could you see fit to return it to us?”

“The pick-up was on loan to Father James, not to the church. And yes, I did buy it and

it is of course my property. So as you see, there is nothing to return since I took away

only what was mine.”

“In that case, forgive my misunderstanding of the circumstances,” replied the priest

coldly. “I think I underestimated the relationship between the two of you.”

Esther stepped out onto the porch with the priest. The winter afternoon was darkening

into night, and the moon was brilliant in the clear, sharp air. It seemed brighter than the

porch light María had switched on. The stark outline of the bare trees made shadows on

the dry grass, the desolate limbs barely moving in the occasional gusts of wind.

“Let me go with you to your car,” she said, her breath turning to puffs of whiteness in

the icy breeze. She took the priest’s arm and pulled him toward the driveway. He was

too taken aback to protest.

“Now then,” she said brightly as she opened the car door and he settled himself in the

driver’s seat, confusion evident in his face. “Let’s make sure we have everything

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perfectly clear. My family has lived in this town for, oh, ages. You must know that.

And you know I have money, obviously. If you are planning to start a bunch of talk

about me and Father James, trying to make our friendship into something it wasn’t, I’d

think twice about that if I were you. Believe me, Father, I could make your life miserable

here if I wanted to. You’d be very smart not to make me want to.”

Esther slammed the car door shut and turned away. She didn’t bother to register the

priest’s reaction.

It was a mistake. Yancey had always repeated the Mexican saying that there was no

such thing as a minor enemy, and the making of gratuitous enemies was folly in his

opinion.

If Esther had seen the priest’s face, she would have recognized hatred there.

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18.

Ed Hiller was not a man who had heard God calling.

He was one of eight children, the offspring of Amanda and Thomas Hiller, who

somehow scratched out a subsistence living on a mesquite-infested farm near Cotulla,

Texas.

His family’s only claim to fame was their Catholicism, surrounded as they were by a

sea of Protestants. The calling that Ed heard was a voice telling him to get out of Cotulla

as soon as earthly possible.

His parents were like most people who had to work from sun to dusk in order to have

barely enough to eat and a minimum of decent clothing. They demanded that each child

contribute his share of the work, and they managed to find something for everyone to do,

no matter how young the child. Ed’s memories of work were hammered out so early in

his life that he couldn’t remember a time when he wasn’t trying to sweep a floor with a

broom he could barely keep upright, or clearing pebbles from a piece of land while others

carried rocks. There was no time, and certainly no energy, for his parents to spend

playing with their children or dealing with anything other than toil and the lessons of

religion.

As Ed grew older, he proved himself a bright, inquisitive child. Before long, the fate of

his older brothers and sisters pointed out to him that schooling wouldn’t last long for him.

His future lay in ever greater amounts of back-breaking labor. One of his brothers died

of a rattlesnake bite, a sister died of tuberculosis, and the youngest child of the family, a

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little boy, died of appendicitis. This reduction in the family increased the burden on the

remaining ones but didn’t increase the portion of family patrimony each hoped to inherit.

Ed realized fairly soon in life that there were no odds in getting a greater share of the

poverty.

He also realized that the only kind of advanced schooling his family would consider for

a child was the priesthood, so as a teenager Ed made it known he was ready to enter a

seminary.

He had rarely seen his parents so pleased. Whether it was because there would be one

less mouth to feed or because he might develop enough sway with God to better their

circumstances, he didn’t know.

During his years at the seminary in San Antonio, Ed came into contact for the first time

with real wealth. He saw homes and stores he never would have imagined, attended

occasional cultural events that astounded him, and for the first time tasted food that was

meant to please the senses instead of simply filling the belly.

Hiller was intellectually gifted enough to find sacred studies unchallenging even though

he was definitely coming from behind. He was not the only scion of the poor to grace the

seminary, either. His problems seemed to lie in other areas.

His mind could get itself around the basics of religious philosophy. It was his soul that

balked. At home, his image of women was one of colorless, work-worn, stoic servitude.

Cleaning, making meals, reproducing, sewing, washing and ironing—their entire lives

seemed naturally devoted to the home and its patriarch. But in San Antonio, Hiller was

seeing another kind of woman for the first time: Cultured, well-dressed, spirited and

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talkative, they seemed to him prizes that men aspired to possess. It occurred to him that

he had missed out on much more than economic well-being.

It also became clear to him that he was not an attractive man. Living in a home where

only work and prayer were the entertainment options, Ed had never compared himself to

anyone else except schoolmates, most of whom were having as hard a time as he was

trying to get by. People were judged by their work and their steadfastness, their loyalty,

not their beauty.

Ed’s lack of genuine surrender to the calling kept him in the seminary several years until

he developed the skill needed to deceive. Because of the shortage of Catholics in

Cotulla, upon ordainment Ed was offered the opportunity to return there to take care of

the tiny fold, and he flatly refused. His refusal was not viewed with approval, and for a

time it looked like his budding career might be nipped before it flowered. Hiller

managed to convince his superiors that he needed more experience, that he had serious

problems with a violent, drunken father, and that his parents had tried to dissuade him

from the priesthood. It was decided that to send him to Cotulla would be too harsh a

burden on a young man from such a background, so he was sent to help an aging priest in

Eagle Pass.

Eagle Pass was not Ed’s idea of where he wanted to be either, but he could at least

cross the border to Piedras Negras and enjoy a good meal. He was thankful for the laws

in Mexico that prevented priests and nuns from appearing in public in religious attire,

because he managed to develop a few friendships in some local bars and flirt rather

clumsily with the prostitutes. He was too unsure of himself and at first too broke to buy

their services.

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Hiller learned Spanish, which was a great help to the old priest who rode herd on the

little Catholic church. Father Marcus would have been a linguistic disaster even if he had

not been hard of hearing, so Ed’s skills and youth were welcomed heartily by the old

man.

For Ed’s part, it meant he had little effective guidance and even less monitoring, which

was just fine with him. He found several lucrative ways to augment his pitiful income,

and the less Father Marcus noticed, the better.

Through some of his barroom acquaintances, Ed found out that money could be made

by driving American cars across the border to be fixed up after minor accidents. The

insurance companies paid for the claims in dollars, the cars were repaired in Mexico for

much less money, and the profit was shared by the people who made the deals and

crossed the vehicles into Mexico.

First Ed had to learn to drive and then get his license, all of which was again heartily

encouraged by Father Marcus who thought he was getting a chauffeur and errand boy for

his declining years. Eventually Ed used Father Marcus’ old station wagon to drive to San

Antonio to drum up business. It was hard work at first since he had no contacts, but with

time word got out about the service he offered. The clients would willingly drive to

Eagle Pass to leave their cars with Ed, who had the body work done in Piedras Negras.

He split the savings with the clients, and everyone went away happy.

It was the unending and dull routine of being a priest that Ed hated. He assisted Father

Marcus at Mass, he pretended to be thrilled by the food and voluntary cleaning offered by

Catholic ladies, some of whom came from across the border just to make sure the priests

had everything they needed. He became tired of the deadly sameness of every day at the

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church or the little room given him in the home of a Catholic family. Because priests had

to be on call day and night, his room at least had its own door to the outside.

The worst was hearing confession and administering last rites. He developed stock

phrases and trite religious comfort for the grieving who would wail around the deathbed

of a loved one. These events were few and far between, but Ed found them almost

intolerable. It was made worse by the fact that Marcus, after the first couple of times Ed

assisted him at a deathbed, decided he was too old to be coming and going at all hours

just because someone was dying, and he sent Ed by himself from then on.

Ed suspected the same thing had happened with confession. Father Marcus had trouble

hearing, so it seemed to him only logical to have Ed confess the faithful. As time went

on, Ed was doing most of the stiflingly dull routine work and Marcus took care of Mass.

At first it was all Ed could do to sit in his little cubbyhole and hear people on the other

side of the screen telling about how often they had cursed, how they had resented their

mother-in-law, how many impure thoughts they had entertained, and similar peccadilloes.

On more than one occasion, listening to some old biddy or overworked housewife drone

on and on about her problems, he had fallen asleep. It was more interesting to hear

teenage girls worry about petting with their boyfriends. He could at least assume a

solemn voice and demand details.

Nevertheless, it was through this burdensome routine that Ed came upon his second line

of income.

It was on a miserably hot summer afternoon, the humidity from the river stifling even

birdsong, that a woman came into the church. The church was small but well-built, and

its high ceiling kept the worst of the heat away from the pews. Pedestal fans stirred the

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air during mass, but the confessionals were nothing but wooden booths hung with

curtains that kept the heat in during summer and failed to protect from the cold in winter.

Father Marcus was snoring away his after-lunch nap in his bedroom off the nave where

the cassocks were hung. Ed was sweating in the miniscule office to one side of the

church entrance. He was writing one of his infrequent letters home, wondering how to

say he was doing very well without encouraging his family to try to see him, when he

saw the woman approach the door to the office.

Ed got up to see what she wanted, and he noticed that she was well dressed, her hair and

face covered with a fine black lace mantilla. She addressed him in Spanish, saying she

wished to confess. The thought of being cooped up in the confessional while this woman

lamented that she had failed to have dinner ready on time for a week made Hiller groan

inwardly.

As he seated himself in the confessional, closing the curtains and sliding back the

wooden panel between him and the woman, a faint whiff of very nice perfume reached

him. Ed had no idea what perfume was expensive and which one wasn’t, but this

woman’s scent was marvelous.

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” began the formal rite of confession. But from

there, the woman went on to tell a tale of betrayal and anguish. She said she was a wife

and mother who had fallen in love with another man and had begun an affair with him.

She was wildly in love with him, but her husband, a good, kind man, needed her and had

only provided her with a fine life and wonderful children. He had never given her reason

to regret her marriage to him.

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The woman was wracked with anguish and sobbed helplessly. Ed, stunned to hear

something totally outside the usual foolish human foibles he was privy to, tried to calm

her with little success.

Eventually the woman was able to go on. She needed spiritual help because without it

she could not give up her lover. She was horrified to find herself on the verge of

destroying the lives of her children and husband, not to mention her own, and committing

a terrible sin by leaving her home to live with another man.

It began to dawn on Ed that the woman was not from Eagle Pass, but Piedras Negras.

He could readily understand her reluctance to make such an earth-shaking confession at

her own church on the town square to a priest who surely knew the whole family and

probably the lover as well. He couldn’t help but think of the phrase in Spanish that

compared a small town to a large hell: pueblo chico, infierno grande.

An idea occurred to Ed, but it would entail that he actually do his job as a priest. The

more he thought about it, he became somewhat breathless with the possibilities opening

up as if by magic. If he had believed in fate, or anything else beyond human kin, he

would have sworn that being a priest in a small town was a windfall beyond his most

fevered dreams.

And here I have been cursing the boredom, he thought, barely able to smother a roar of

laughter.

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19.

Ed took matters into hand. He asked the woman’s name, and she said she was Martha.

She didn’t offer a last name.

Ed talked to her a long time, sweating in his cubicle and wiping his face with his

handkerchief, while drops rolled down his back and sides under his clothes. His legs were

soaked beneath him from the hot leather stool where he sat.

He spoke to her of sacrifice and redemption, and assured her that the very fact that she

had confessed meant that God was placing her feet on the path to forgiveness. Hiller

threw his all into the message that she must give up her lover and take heart, because God

most surely would give peace to a woman who was willing to sacrifice her earthly

pleasure to save her family and honor her marriage vows. God would give her the

strength to do what had to be done, and Ed would be ready to help her night or day to

accomplish her redemption.

Hiller thought he might faint with his good fortune—or maybe it was just the heat—

when Martha confessed that what had brought her to the church that afternoon was the

discovery that she was pregnant by her lover.

Ed urged Martha to cherish the child as a sign of God’s grace, to bring it up as her

husband’s, and to wipe away any thought of punishing herself further. He swore to her

that God was infinite in his mercy, but she needed to give Him a chance to show her the

peace and serenity He could bring.

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By the time she left, Martha was calmer and perhaps even more positive, it seemed to

Ed. He had given her a series of spiritual exercises to carry out, knowing it would keep

her busy and give her a sense that she was doing something constructive.

As she left the church, Ed went to the door to see where she went. She walked under

the blazing sun toward downtown where Ed assumed she had parked her car. He raced

into the office and grabbed the keys to the old station wagon. He quickly removed his

cassock, dashed to the car, and was relieved that the car started at the first try.

He waited a while with the engine running to give the woman time to get a couple of

blocks distance from the church. Then he drove the three blocks to downtown and slowly

cruised the short main street until he spotted her getting into a late-model car with

Mexican license plates. Not many people were out at that time of day because of the

heat, so he had no difficulty following her across the bridge at a discreet distance.

She drove past the town square in Piedras Negras and continued on until she came to a

large two-story house with elaborate wrought iron-work over the windows and a beautiful

curlicue iron fence in front. The cool, shady tiled front porch was filled with big pots of

ferns and begonias, and the driveway led to a garage able to hold four vehicles. This,

thought Ed gleefully, is a woman with money.

He memorized the address and drove back across the bridge to Eagle Pass. He stopped

at a drugstore and bought three school notebooks and a supply of pencils.

When he got back to the church, Father Marcus was up and wanted Ed to help him with

the sermon for Sunday. The “help” had nothing to do with adding ideas or biblical

quotes that went with the topic. It meant listening to Marcus deliver the sermon.

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As the elderly priest droned on, Ed planned his next meeting with Martha. For once, Ed

was not sorry to finish his daily duties and head back to his solitary room, carrying his

notebooks and pencils with him.

Once there he realized he had omitted sharpening a couple of pencils in the church

office, but when his landlady knocked on his door to offer him supper, he took the simple

meal of ground beef tacos and beans and asked her for a knife. Instead she took the

supply of pencils and sharpened all of them in her daughter’s room. When she returned,

she carried a big glass of cold lemonade, the pencils, and a tiny manual sharpener for the

father’s use.

“Are you going to study, Father?” she asked.

“The priesthood demands constant preparation and thought. You could say this is my

homework,” he replied.

Once alone, he opened the first notebook and wrote down everything he remembered of

the confession and the woman’s address. It’s a start, he thought.

During the next week Hiller was kept busy with an unusual amount of work.. A

customer from south of San Antonio brought a new car with an ugly dent in the right

front fender, someone needed last rites during the night at a farm near town—Hiller

wondered why people seemed to die at night or early in the morning—Father Marcus

came down with a summer cold and let Ed take charge of Sunday Mass, although he

insisted Ed deliver the sermon he had prepared. Since Ed didn’t care one way or another,

it didn’t bother him to carry out Marcus’ wishes. The volunteer ladies wanted to polish

all the metalwork on the candleholders in the church, and on the Saturday before Ed said

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Mass, a small wedding was celebrated at which Ed also officiated. By the church’s usual

standards, it had been a week of frenzied activity.

By Ed’s standards, it had been a whirlwind.

Then came a week of ennui as the town continued to bake under a summer sun. Hiller

at first welcomed the return to inactivity, but as the week wore on, he became restless,

wondering if Martha was going to come back or not. If she didn’t, it would greatly

complicate his plans, but it wouldn’t put paid to them. Not now that he had seen his way

to the future.

It was not until the following week that Martha came to the church. By that time Hiller

was becoming desperate and wondering how and where he would be able to meet her on

the Mexican side of the border.

She came at the same time of day. When she asked for him to hear her confession, he

could have sung with relief.

She said she felt bad because her family thought she was in Eagle Pass shopping. She

hated lying to them, but as Ed had suspected, she hated even more the idea of dealing

with her spiritual crisis in her church in Piedras Negras where everyone knew her. Ed

hastened to assure her that since her little white lie was told so that she could get her life

back onto a decent Christian path, God would surely forgive her.

This time she was sad but not anguished. She said the spiritual exercises had helped her

hugely and she had refrained from seeing her lover since her confession. She said she

had decided not to tell him she was pregnant, and that tomorrow she would let him know

they could no longer see each other.

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Ed wanted to know more about him—was he married, was he a friend of the family?

Martha revealed that he was indeed married, and he was also godfather to one of her

children. She thanked Hiller profusely for having saved them from ruining two families

and committing a horrific sin.

Ed didn’t press his luck by asking the man’s name. He told Martha he hoped she would

come from time to time to let him know she was remaining faithful to his instructions and

to receive spiritual support when she felt she needed it. He told her that more than ever

she needed to be prepared to sacrifice her love for this man, since it was doubly offensive

to God that she had become involved with someone who stood as godfather to a child, a

most sacred trust.

Afraid he might have overdone his scolding, her hastened to let Martha know that God

had forgiven her and was pleased with her strength and submission. He gave her

absolution and sent her on her way.

Now there was nothing to do but gather information and wait.

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20.

In the coming months Hiller slowly added to his notebook the information gleaned

from gossip picked up in bars and cafés in Piedras Negras. It turned out that Martha’s

husband was the owner of extensive lands and several businesses, including the town’s

largest hotel. He was highly thought of, a generous and good-hearted man who did much

to support both the local church and its activities in favor of the poor. His wife was

practically considered a saint, an unflagging supporter of relief for the poor and a

proponent of better health care for the town’s prostitutes. Most women wouldn’t touch

that topic with a barge pole, but Martha was as brave as she was dedicated. It was said

that her husband worshipped her.

No wonder she wanted a lover, thought Ed, she and her husband were awash with

holiness.

As a result of Hiller’s discovery of the possible benefits of hearing confession, he began

to pay more attention to things that were said. Most of the faithful came week after week

with their soporific load of inconsequential sins, but Hiller realized he had been remiss at

spotting the occasional moral lapse that might be highly embarrassing for the sinner. He

also realized that hearing the same confessions in a big city would be much less

productive. The anonymity of city living detracted from his possible sources of income.

Ed was aware that he had to be extremely careful. If he ever made a mistake and tried

to use information from the confession of someone who turned out to be inclined to

report Hiller, no matter what the embarrassment, then his position as a priest was over

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forever. Ed’s first incursion, a kind of trial balloon, was not Martha, but rather a young

man who confessed to having exhibitionist tendencies.

Ed asked for a single payment of a hundred dollars not to send an anonymous letter to

the sheriff’s department, revealing that a certain individual had exhibited himself to a

woman coming out of a gas station restroom.

The young man paid up and probably left town. Ed never saw him again, not at church

and not around town either.

After the birth of Martha’s baby, one afternoon when she came to thank Father Hiller for

his help, Ed suggested that a modest donation might be in order. Martha, glowing with

peace and contentment, happily took the amount from her purse immediately and handed

it over. Ed then tactfully spoke about the privations the small church was subject to,

being such a limited congregation and all, wouldn’t it be nice for Martha to make the

same donation each month, by way of Father Hiller?

For a moment, a very small moment, Martha frowned slightly with confusion. But she

was an intelligent woman, and her moment of doubt turned into certainty. The color

drained from her face, taking with it any evidence of peace or contentment. Hiller was

afraid she might faint. He immediately reached out to support her, but she jerked away

from him with an expression of repulsion. As she dashed from the church, she stumbled

and fell into the dirt near the sidewalk where her car was parked, covering her

fashionable coat with red dust. In spite of torn stockings and a bleeding knee, she leaped

into the car and drove away as if she hadn’t even felt the fall.

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For several years, as Father Marcus went from old to decrepit, Hiller fought tooth and

nail to remain in Eagle Pass. He was seconded by Marcus himself, who knew that he

would remain where he was until he died. Hiller was irreplaceable, Marcus asserted,

with his language skills and his willingness to take over the work.

It was evident, however, that Marcus’ insistence on delivering Mass had reduced the

tiny flock even more. Who wanted to hear the old codger, so out of touch with most of

the world, reheat the same sermons and serve them again and again?

If Father Hiller thought he was next in line, his impression was shattered the day a

young priest fresh from the seminary was sent to them, what Hiller felt with anger was

the equivalent of a second left foot. The diocese bishop declared that struggling churches

needed new blood and new enthusiasm, especially if young people were to be encouraged

to participate in the life of the church. Without young people, stated the bishop, the little

church would die off.

By this time Hiller was certainly neither young nor fresh. Even though Eagle Pass had

grown a bit, nothing in the church had been improved upon. There was still no parish

house with an office or kitchen, and the new priest immediately took up the banner of

increasing church attendance and drumming up donations. His enthusiasm grated on

Hiller. Adding insult to injury, the priest was Mexican American and spoke Spanish.

Angel Martínez was his name, and he at first thought he was merely resented by Hiller

because of his youth and inexperience. As time passed, though, and Angel’s efforts to

help Hiller and pay him the respect due to an older man were met only with irritation and

rejection, Angel began to notice other things as well.

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He noticed that Hiller dressed rather well, nothing flashy or luxurious, but the man

owned several pairs of very good shoes and a selection of nice sweaters. He had a long

woolen overcoat too, it looked like camelhair.

When Angel finally had enough donors to begin construction of a modest parish house,

most of which he would have to build himself, Hiller thought the work would keep Angel

busy, so he decided to encourage the project. One morning he claimed to have found an

envelope in the collection box containing five hundred dollars meant for the new parish

house. He turned the money over to Angel, but Hiller’s sudden change of attitude toward

Angel and the house project sent up red flags in Angel’s mind.

Not many months had gone by before Marcus himself was won over by Angel’s hard

work and cheerful nature. Angel had a special sensitivity, a genuine human concern, for

the members of the church, and this fact got through even Marcus’ armor of age and

infirmity.

Angel began to notice other things. Hiller seemed to meet a lot of people whose cars he

drove to Piedras Negras and then back again, minus the bent fenders or hoods. What

worried him the most was the woman who came by the church once a month to spend

two or three minutes with Hiller and then leave hurriedly. Angel couldn’t think up a

reason for these visits since the woman didn’t pray at the altar and apparently had no

other business at the church. Perhaps she was a donor who wished to remain anonymous,

but she seemed not just unhappy but frightened.

Angel found it irritating and inexplicable that Hiller would not allow him to hear

confession. Once in a great while, before Christmas Mass or during Holy Week, there

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was enough of a press of churchgoers that Angel was able to spell Hiller in the single

confessional.

It was a long, hard road to get the parish house built, but when it was finally ready two

years after it had been started, Father Marcus died at the advanced age of 92.

When the bishop visited to officiate at the funeral, he closed himself in conference with

Father Martínez. Hiller saw the handwriting on the wall, he thought. The young priest

had managed to rejuvenate church attendance, finish the house, and the few times he had

said Mass alone, he had been a hit. It seemed that Ed’s only problem would be how to

stay in Eagle Pass even if it meant being, de facto, an underling to a younger man. It

wasn’t impossible. Ed knew that it was extremely hard to find priests willing and ready

to remain in small, unsuccessful parishes. That was why he had had such a long run in

Eagle Pass under a priest too old to be effective. No one in his right mind wanted to be

there. Except Angel, of course.

Angel came out of the spanking-new church office at the parish house and found Hiller

in the old office, sitting and staring out the window.

“The bishop would like to see you, Father,” said Angel.

Hiller straightened up, took a deep breath, and walked toward the parish house. Not a

bad job, he thought, observing the simple but well-built structure.

Ed bent to kiss the bishop’s ring, and the bishop asked him to sit down. The new office

only had two folding chairs; the rest of the furniture from the old office would be moved

the next day.

After the first few words from the bishop’s mouth, Ed’s state of abject panic, shock, and

then relief was such that he didn’t register the bishop’s appearance, his tone of voice, or

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many of the subsequent words. He felt he was enclosed in a blinding cloud of noise

made up of his pounding heart and the sound of his own breathing.

It seemed he was to be disciplined, that much he got before visions of being expelled

from the priesthood and put on trial for blackmail overwhelmed him.

He must have looked as bad as he felt, because the bishop stopped to allow Hiller to

catch his breath. The respite enabled him to hear more of what was being said. The

bishop had no desire to hear the details of the car repair business, that would be heard by

someone else. Hiller was to return to the seminary to take part in duties there that

included helping out with tasks related to teaching. He was to submit himself to penance

and purification to cleanse his soul of the desire for material wealth, and if it seemed that

he had been successful, he would then be sent to another parish on the border that needed

a lot of work. It would be up to him to prove his worth in a difficult environment.

Hope dawned and then burst upon Hiller like a light from heaven itself. It was only the

car business they had found out about! His relief was so mighty that he was afraid he

might burst into hysterical laughter, so he threw himself to his knees and repented with a

fervor born of the closest of calls, the nearest of misses.

The bishop was impressed.

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21.

Esther brushed her hair in front of the dresser mirror. She wore it shorter now. The pale

color was touched by lighter hair that might have been the beginning of gray, but her face

showed barely a line.

It was springtime and the bluebonnets covered the nearby fields, lakes of rich blue

spotted with the crimson and yellow of other wildflowers. She thought about driving to

San Antonio just to see the waves of color brightening the roadside.

She heard a gentle knock and saw John standing just outside the door, looking in at her.

“Do you mind if we have a talk?”

Esther wondered what he could have in mind, and she answered herself immediately:

more money.

“Come into the sitting area here. I’ll open the French doors, it’s a nice day.”

“Are you sure you want me in here?” asked John sarcastically.

“Oh, I think I’m safe. Come on in.”

They sat in Esther’s beloved wicker chairs and breathed in the warm spring air. She

noticed once more, just as she had been noticing for the last year, that something in John

had changed. Time had made him look more mature, but it had only added to his

attractiveness. Something else had changed in him that was reflected in his face, but she

didn’t know what it was.

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She did know that for the past year the burning fires of her hatred had banked enough to

give her greater peace. John had seemed quieter, less angry, occasionally even given to

moments of what seemed to be contemplation.

Maybe that was too hopeful a word, she thought. But at least he has calmed down.

Esther found herself wondering if the word that might apply to John was “happy”. It

didn’t seem possible with a man like John. He was so driven by pleasure that Esther

couldn’t imagine him holding feelings more complicated than the desire for the next

thrill, the next new car, the next new woman.

“What’s up?” she asked.

“Do you remember when we talked about divorce?”

“Yes, I do, and I remember that you threatened to do anything you could to avoid it. I

also remember exactly what information you said you would use in order to stay married

to me.”

“I know. But, well, I’ve changed my mind. It isn’t fair to you. You’ve hated being

here in the house with me even if we don’t see much of each other. You’ve hated it so

much you even hired that guy to make sure you aren’t alone with me at night, for God’s

sake. You can’t claim this has been pleasant for you.”

“Are you trying to tell me you won’t try to stop me if I want to divorce you?” Esther

was astounded.

“Not exactly. What I’m trying to say is that I want a divorce, and I thought you did

too.”

For a moment Esther was unable to reply.

“What in the world brought this on?” she was finally able to ask.

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“Does it matter? I mean, what is this? I thought you’d be jumping up and down to get

rid of me. You know, you’re dream come true at last,” added John dryly.

An inkling of what might be happening came to Esther, and she was shocked to think

that she hadn’t seen it for the past year.

“It does matter. I’ve been paying for your upkeep years and years now, and the least I

should get is an explanation to satisfy my morbid curiosity.”

John hesitated. Something about this was not going as he expected.

“Don’t go into some song and dance routine about what’s fair to me, John, when has

that ever concerned you in the least? I don’t buy that crap anymore, and I haven’t for

years. I would just like to know what has made you change your mind, and why would

you want to give up a solid income like this?”

“Hang on a minute! If I let you divorce me I’m going to want a share of what’s coming

to me. I’ve been your husband for long enough to know that I have some kind of social

value for you. Or would you have preferred to be an old maid?”

“Do you really think that would have been my fate, you idiot? Do you think you are

the only man my father could have bought?”

“Okay, okay, Esther, let’s just calm down, okay? We’re going to wind up at each

other’s throat, as usual. Just tell me what you want me to do, I’ll tell you how much

money I need, and there is bound to be some way we can agree on this.”

“It’s simple, John. I want to know what changed your mind.”

John sighed.

“Okay. I’m in love with someone. We want to move to New Mexico to live. Is that

what you want to know?”

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Esther laughed heartily.

“Love, you say! How much is her family worth, John? Is she offering you a better

deal?”

“Her family isn’t wealthy. You don’t seem to get it. I love this woman. What I don’t

understand is why in hell you aren’t leaping at the chance to pay me off once and for all

and be rid of me.”

So this was the change she had noticed in John. Was it possible he was capable of

love? The idea struck her to the quick, and it hurt even more because she hadn’t expected

it to.

Esther stood up and walked out onto the veranda.

“This isn’t that little whore you’ve been keeping, is it?”

John’s face darkened, but Esther had her back to him and didn’t see it.

“No, it isn’t. That’s been over for ages. This woman is no prostitute. I don’t want to

talk about her.”

Esther turned.

“You don’t want to talk about her? Yet you think I’m going to shell out cash so you

can set yourself up with her in New Mexico?”

“What in Christ’s name is this, Esther? You are swimming in money. It’s not as if I’m

going to ask for a king’s ransom here. If you want to make me beg, go ahead. I’ll do it.”

It was only then that Esther realized it was true. John did love someone, whatever he

might mean by that word, but whatever it was, it was something he had never given

Esther. What would it have been like, she wondered, if he had cared for me?

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Esther came back into the room and sat down. She began to understand that part of her

consolation had been the idea that John couldn’t love, period. He had used her as he used

everyone, there was nothing in him able to move to a higher plane. But now she saw that

her comfort was the comfort of fools. John had used her, all right, just as she had used

him, but he did appear to feel something beyond his own pleasure. It just had nothing to

do with Esther.

She felt she had never hated him so much as now, when he was at his most human.

That he couldn’t understand the depth of the insult to her was a relief. Otherwise he

might have tried to take advantage of it to get what he wanted from her.

She didn’t speak until she was sure her voice would be steady.

“Well, you seem to have it all worked out. I guess you aren’t too long in the tooth for a

new start. If this woman you say you love is young, you’d better tell her not to expect

children.”

“Why?” asked John in genuine confusion. “Are you out of your mind?”

“Because there is nothing at all wrong with me, as you’ll remember. I told you all

about it, the doctor visit and everything. You’re the one who never wanted to get a

check-up, probably because you already knew you couldn’t produce children. Are you

going to tell her about this ahead of time or let her find out like I did?”

“Dear God,” said John in sudden comprehension. “All right, I’ll tell her, does that

satisfy you?”

Again Esther felt that she was missing a vital piece of information, and again her

intuition told her what it was. She dreaded confirmation, she wasn’t sure she could

tolerate it, but she couldn’t stop herself.

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“You’ve had children, haven’t you?”

“Yes.”

“How many? And where are they?”

John contemplated Esther’s face. His voice grew cold.

“I got a girl pregnant when we were teenagers, and she told me later she’d gotten an

abortion. I don’t know if it’s true or not, I assume it was. There was a woman in

Houston, older than me, she said her husband was sterile but he would agree to raise a kid

if she had one by some other man. They paid me to do it.”

And still, there was a small reservation in his icy voice, a holding back of some essential

tidbit.

“This woman you say you’re in love with, is she pregnant?” Let it not be true, thought

Esther.

John was silent for what seemed to Esther a very long time.

“Yes, she is.”

“And so now you want to marry her and be a father and do the whole traditional

routine, right?” I don’t need anyone to rub salt in my gaping wounds, thought Esther, I

do very well on my own, thank you very much.

John didn’t reply.

Esther wondered why she had never realized that the opposite of love wasn’t hate but

indifference. You could never love or hate anyone who hadn’t touched your soul, she

thought. You could slip and slide each way, between love and hate, or you could settle

down on one side forever. What you couldn’t do was not care.

She stood and started to leave the room. John got up too.

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“Esther, we need to work this out.”

“There is nothing to work out, John. You can leave whenever you want to.”

“Not like this, I can’t. I’m owed, Esther. You owe me. I’ve been your excuse for a

marriage for a long time now. Surely that has some value or you wouldn’t have put up

with me for this long no matter what I threatened to do. You’ve got plenty of high-

powered lawyers who could have had me in the street in a week. A little scandal, and

then the whole thing would have gone away. Do you think anyone would have believed

me about your father, the most respected man in the county? I’m not even sure anyone

would have cared if he had sired a whole goddamned baseball team in Ciudad Meseta.”

Another home truth that hit close to the bone. Esther thought desperately that she

didn’t want to find out so much about herself. Had she really been waiting patiently for a

plan to occur to her that would allow her to kill John, an opportunity, a windfall? Or had

she, somewhere in the most hidden corner of her heart, harbored a burning hope that the

changes she had seen in John in the last months had something to do with her?

It was unbearable. She whirled around.

“You’ve been paid each month for services rendered. That’s it. You’ll get nothing

more.”

“Then I guess I’ll just have to move into a house here in town, hon. People may not

give a damn about what your father did, but they are going to have a field day when your

husband brings his woman, pregnant at that, to live right under your nose. Maybe the

two of you can meet at the store or down at Myrna’s. We’ve got a bit saved up, and the

town looks to be losing its young people, so I’ll bet we could get a real good deal on a

rental house. Shit, who knows, maybe even one on this street.”

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“Would you actually do that to someone you are supposed to love? Would you subject

her to that kind of scandal?” Esther was genuinely curious.

John took a step forward, and Esther moved back.

“She’s tougher than you, hon. She knows what life is about, she’s seen it from the

other end like I have. You, sitting here on your little wicker chairs with your maids at

your beck and call, don’t have a clue. All your little charity work with Father James,

your contributions to some brainless art society in San Antone, that’s what you do to fill

up your time. I could have screwed you blind, but there’s nothing in you that gives a man

anything back. You always loved it, you were always ready, but you didn’t do anything

but lie there. Christ, but it got to be work after a while! You’re empty. You couldn’t

even have a baby, there’s nothing in you that could make one.”

John strode from the room while Esther thought, no, it isn’t true. None of this can be

true. She stood for a long time. If I’m empty, John, she thought, you did this to me.

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22.

It was later in the day that John told Esther he would be out of the house within two

weeks or so. In the meantime, he said, he had to make a couple of trips to New Mexico

to see about getting a house outside Santa Fe on the road to Gallup.

He said no more about money, but Esther knew it was a time bomb waiting to blow up

in her face. At first she had trouble coming to terms with the idea of John leaving the

house. In another wave of unpleasant insight she could have happily done without, she

found that even to have John in the house as a problem provided her with an odd sense of

purpose, a point to her day. John had accused her of being empty, but empty, she

thought, is a faded word for what I’m going to feel when he’s gone.

It was hard for her to understand, even more so to deal with, the soul-scorching, white-

hot rage she felt when she thought of John, not having sex with another woman, but

making love to someone else. She could only bear the thought that he had used her body,

labeled her as “work”, or even had raped her, by assuming John couldn’t do anything

else. To realize she had been mistaken was a rejection that struck at her very identity.

And as if that were not enough, suddenly her money was not enough to keep him.

The morning of the next day, John had left the house earlier than usual. He drove up an

hour later and parked his car at the sidewalk, walking up to the house. He found Esther

watching him from the dining room as he came through the front door.

“I’m here to get some clothes, I’ll be going to New Mexico for the next two or three

days,” he stated coolly.

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As he moved away toward his part of the house, Esther went quickly into the living

room and looked out a window toward the street. She saw a woman in the passenger seat

of John’s car. The sight was the final blow for Esther.

The woman had the long, straight, black hair and dark skin of an American Indian. She

seemed young, at least young enough to breed, thought Esther. The woman raised a hand

to push her hair from her face, and it was like a knife twisting in Esther’s stomach. John

could not have found someone more different from Esther than this woman sitting in his

car, this woman who brushed her hair from her face and waited patiently, not caring that

she waited in front of the house and within view of the wife of the father of her baby.

Esther moved away from the window when she heard John striding to the front door.

Wordlessly he left the house. Esther went to the window again as John climbed behind

the steering wheel, tossing a duffel bag into the back seat. Then he turned to the woman

beside him and Esther saw the brilliant smile she hadn’t seen in years, John’s hand

touching the woman’s face, his arms that took her into a quick hug.

As they drove away, Esther dashed to the tiny bathroom in the study and vomited. Her

last memory of John’s touch had been when he raped her.

Esther was unable to eat the rest of the day. María thought she was sick and wanted to

phone for a doctor, but Esther refused. Esther wondered with horror how much the maids

had noticed lately. Did they know John was leaving? Did they know why? Did, in fact,

the whole town know?

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Esther stayed in her room lying down during the afternoon, trying not to think. When

she dozed off, she dreamt of placing a gun to John’s forehead and pulling the trigger,

wondering why the bullet was in the chamber, and why it didn’t shoot out but merely fell

from the barrel harmlessly. As she kept trying to fire the gun, John would laugh and pick

up the useless bullets from the bed, tossing them back at her. When they hit her, they

were no longer bullets but tiny dolls she had to gather up and wrap in miniscule blankets,

too small for her to get around each doll. Desperate, she took straight pins and pinned the

blankets onto the dolls. Exultantly she showed John the dolls, but he scolded her, telling

her she had killed them with the pins. Suddenly her father was in the room. Yancey took

the dolls and told Esther they had to be placed in the chamber of the gun in order to come

out all right. John kept laughing, saying the dolls were his and he was going to take them

away. Then the scene changed and Esther was outside in the dark, digging a hole in the

yard in order to bury the gun.

A soft knock on the door woke her from her fitful dream.

“Who is it?” she asked.

“Miss Esther, it’s Consuelo, Santiago wanted to speak to you but I told him you felt

bad. Should I tell him you’ll see him tomorrow?”

“No, Consuelo, I need to get up and try to eat something, have him wait for me in the

kitchen in about an hour, I’ll see him then.”

Esther brushed her hair and teeth, pulled on slacks and a light sweater, and went to the

dining room. María and Consuelo seemed upset and perhaps had been crying. María

took Esther a bowl of her excellent chicken broth, and Esther said she might be able to

keep some rice down too.

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Esther still was not very hungry but felt better after eating. She asked for some coffee,

hoping it wouldn’t upset her stomach again, and asked Santiago to come into the dining

room and sit down.

He felt uncomfortable and out of place, but obviously something was troubling him and

the women.

He went to the point. His mother, María’s sister, suffered from diabetes. It had gotten

to the point where the circulation in her legs was bad, and a minor ingrown toenail

became a blazing infection that was not responding to treatment because the same poor

circulation that had caused it also meant that the woman’s blood was not delivering the

medication. The local doctor felt that gangrene was beginning and recommended

amputation of the foot. He wanted the woman to go to a hospital in San Antonio for the

procedure and also to get orientation on how to manage her disease. She refused, not

from superstition or stubbornness, but because she knew her family could not afford it.

She said that a clinic in Ciudad Meseta was good enough for her. Santiago was

desperate. It was a matter of saving her life. He begged for a loan from Esther, saying he

would work for nothing until it was paid off. Tears rolled down his face as he finished.

“Santiago, don’t you worry about a thing. I’m going to pay for the hospital and

anything else your mother needs, and this is not a loan. It’s a gift. Can you make the

arrangements to take your mother to the hospital soon? You know you can use the pick-

up. If you think you could get her there by tomorrow afternoon, I can make arrangements

through my lawyers to pay all the bills. Your mother is going to need to recuperate, and

while she’s doing that, let’s see if we can get a specialist in, there may be more she can

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do for the disease than is being done here. At least when she gets back you’ll know

where you stand. She’s going to need rehabilitation, too, do you realize that?”

Santiago now burst into open weeping. She feared for a moment he was going to throw

himself at her feet, but he hesitated to embarrass her. He said he would get his mother to

the hospital immediately if Esther would give him permission to leave.

Esther asked him to accompany her to the study, where she called her law firm and told

one of her lawyers what she wanted. She would be paying the hospital through the law

firm, if they would take on that task for her. She wanted to do this anonymously. The

lawyer of course agreed.

When she hung up, she turned to Santiago.

“Okay, we’re all set up. I’m going to give you a check right now because you’re going

to need gas, someplace to stay yourself until your mother is ready to come home, money

for food, that kind of thing. You can take María if you want to, just leave Consuelo here

with me.”

Santiago was at a loss for words but would have been unable to speak even if he had

found something to say. He was having a hard time controlling his tears.

“On your way,” said Esther, pushing him out of the study. “Just phone me in the next

two days. I may need you here for a day or so, but then you can go back to San

Antonio.”

“I will never, never be able to repay you for this, Miss Esther,” Santiago managed to

say in a hoarse voice.

“Yes, you will, Santiago, there’s something I want you to do for me, but it’s not

important right now. Go on, get out of here, you need to be on your way to the hospital.”

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María began to wail in the kitchen as Santiago took the news of the miracle that had

just occurred. She came into the dining room bathed in tears, sobbing, as Esther poured

herself some coffee.

“Oh, good grief, María,” laughed Esther, “enough of this! You and Santiago need to

start right away or you’ll be driving late at night. Go, go!”

The house was almost silent for the next two days. Only Esther and Consuelo broke the

loneliness from time to time as they chatted about menus and grocery shopping.

Esther sat down at the desk in the study and wrote a note to John.

“John—I’ve thought about your proposal and I have an offer. I will have the divorce

papers drawn up, and as soon as you have signed them, I will give you a lump sum of two

hundred thousand dollars.”

She took the note to what used to be her home with John and placed it on the bed where

he was sure to find it. She stood for a moment, looking around the room. It was neat and

clean, and the closet door was open. It seemed emptier than she remembered it. The

thought that John had removed some of his clothes to some other place made her stomach

churn again. Esther looked through drawers and checked the bathroom. Suddenly she

couldn’t stand to be in this part of the house another moment. She left quickly.

Esther didn’t expect John to be satisfied with her offer, but she didn’t want to make him

suspicious by offering a much larger amount. Maybe she was overestimating him, maybe

he wouldn’t be suspicious. Maybe what she couldn’t bear was the sight of his happiness.

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The phone rang and it was Santiago, reporting that the surgery had gone well, his

mother was taking the loss of a foot as well as could be expected, and did she need him

back at the house yet?

Esther told him to stay in San Antonio but to ring her again in two days’ time.

It was near dusk when she heard John’s car coming up the driveway. Esther had been

roaming the house restlessly, taking up a book then discarding it, lying down to rest only

to be up a minute later, still tired but feeling like electricity was shooting through her

legs. She was thinking about going out for a long walk in the fragrant spring evening

when she heard the car.

She dashed to the study and peeked out the window. She was disconcerted and angered

by the degree of her relief to see the car had no passenger.

The front door opened, then shut. Minutes passed. She heard John coming toward the

study, and she pretended to be writing something.

He came into the study and flopped onto the couch, lying full length there. He yawned

and stretched. Dear God, thought Esther, he’s like some beautiful, soulless animal.

“How was the trip?” she asked coolly, and immediately regretted it. She didn’t want to

know anything about the trip, or the woman he took with him, and here she was, already

talking about it. Great, my aim at my own foot is impeccable, she thought with a mixture

of irritation and anguish.

“Tiring. Listen, Esther, you’re fooling around with me, aren’t you? You think you can

buy me off with that piddlin’ little couple hundred thousand? Come on, hon, getting rid

of me is bound to be worth more than that.”

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Since whatever she negotiated with him no longer mattered, she had no trouble

remaining calm. She only needed to keep him around a little longer.

“You may be right. Okay, this is really my final offer to you. If you don’t take it, then

you’d better resign yourself to living in Cormorant Hill and carrying out your threat,

because there is no way on God’s green earth you’re going to get any more out of me. I

mean it, John, you’d better take me seriously on this. I’ll give you half a million dollars.

Do you have any idea how much that is?”

“Hot damn!” he exclaimed, leaping up from the sofa and covering the distance to Esther

in three strides. Before she could react, he swept her into his arms and twirled her

around. In that fleeting instant she felt the roughness of the stubble on his face, breathed

in the fragrance of his expensive after-shave, his sweat, the toasty smell of his cotton

shirt.

“Put me down!” she cried. John set her on her feet, beaming at her.

“You’re the best, hon!” he said, leaning in to give her a kiss on the cheek.

Esther was weak with rage. He sounded like she had just given him a particularly

expensive car, or a wildly hoped-for Christmas present. She was unable to keep quiet.

“Am I supposed to share in your euphoria, John, when what you are doing is a little

thing called extortion?”

“Lighten up, Esther, for heaven’s sake. We’re both getting what we want.”

No, John, she thought, I’m not getting what I wanted. Someone else is getting that.

“There are going to be a lots of things to sign, and you’re going to have to be here.

When are you going to New Mexico again? If you can manage to be back here at a set

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time, I’ll have everything brought down from San Antonio and we’ll get the paperwork

out of the way in one sitting.”

“Okay, great. I’ll go next Tuesday and I can be back here Thursday night.”

“Then it’s a deal,” she said, trying to sound steady.

“Let’s have a glass of wine in celebration,” said John, “I’m starving too, what has

Consuelo cooked up today?”

Every word was a razor cut.

“You go on, I’ve got things to do and I already had supper. I think we can hold the

drink until we sign the papers,” she added dryly.

Santiago stood before her in the study, tired but happy, telling Esther the details about

the hospital and the doctors, things that amazed him, how well his mother was doing.

Esther asked him to sit down in the chair in front of the desk. She asked how María was

doing, and Santiago said she had been a pillar of strength for his mother, helping her

learn how to maneuver with her crutches.

“Santiago, I want to ask you something.”

“Of course, Miss Esther, anything.”

“Is there any kind of brake problem that could cause a car to lose control on a

mountainous road?”

“Miss Esther, is something wrong with one of the cars?” asked Santiago, worried. “If

there is, I won’t go back to the hospital until it’s fixed, it’s dangerous to drive a car with

bad brakes even without mountains.”

“No, the cars are fine. There’s something I want you to do for me.”

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“Miss Esther, anything. You know what I owe you, and what my mother and María

owe you. Whatever you ask will not be enough.”

“If you do what I ask, Santiago, you will no longer be in my debt.”

Santiago smiled.

“I will always be in your debt, and you will always be in my prayers.”

The familiar phrase gave Esther a small stab of pain.

She spoke very clearly.

“I want you to fix the brakes on my husband’s car so that they will fail. I want it done

on Monday night.”

For several moments, Santiago looked like he thought he was having trouble hearing.

Esther was silent, waiting to see what would happen. She leaned back in her chair,

clasping her hands and putting them demurely in her lap.

The map of emotions traveled by Santiago was printed on his face and in his eyes.

Esther had no trouble following along. First he was incredulous, but as her silence drove

home the knife, the complete, horrific contours of his entrapment became clear. He had

already been paid for what this woman was asking him to do, with nothing less than his

mother’s life.

Esther thought back to the explosion of relief and happiness that had taken place in the

kitchen when Santiago had delivered the news. That moment must be burning Santiago’s

heart like the brand of Satan himself. It was really too bad, thought Esther. But what

choice do I have, really and truly? No one will ever know, and Santiago will surely get

over this in time.

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It took Santiago a long time for the struggle in his soul to end. He imagined having to

try to pay for the hospital, or watching his mother die a nightmare death as gangrene

crept up her body. He imagined her being butchered in some third or fourth rate clinic

instead of having the best surgeons and first-class care. But those choices were gone

now, terrible as they were. The hellish debt had already been taken on, and it would

indeed cost him his soul to pay it off.

And he had to pay. How could he not? He had gone to Esther, pleading for help. No

one had forced him to do it. If he had made a bargain with the devil, how could he have

known at the time? Consuelo, María, his mother, who knows what this woman was

capable of, how could he abandon them when all it would cost to save them was one

person damned for eternity?

When he finally stood up, his body moving like that of an old man, the light was gone

from his eyes.

“Did you understand?” asked Esther.

Santiago nodded.

“Monday night, right? And you know how to do this, don’t you?”

Again Santiago nodded. He walked toward the door. The distance seemed beyond

comprehension—would he ever get there? Would he ever get out of this woman’s sight?

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23.

On Tuesday afternoon, Santiago came to the house to say he would no longer be

working for Esther. He was pale. He refused to meet her eyes. Looking him over, she

was once more impressed by his resemblance to an American Indian. It struck her then

that she didn’t know if John was going on this trip alone or not, a thought she hadn’t even

entertained two days ago. But in the end, what did it matter?

It was not necessary for her to ask why Santiago was leaving. She had of course

expected this. As soon as John had driven off on his way to New Mexico, Santiago

brought a small suitcase from the garage apartment, locked the door, and left. When he

returned that afternoon, he turned over the keys to the apartment door and to the pick-up.

Esther handed Santiago a letter, explaining it was a favorable recommendation of him as

a worker, something that would be valuable as he hunted for work. She told him she had

also included a small severance pay.

If she expected thanks, she got none. Santiago looked up at her once, his eyes neutral,

his face expressionless, then he turned and walked away.

After dinner, the women went home and Esther was alone in the house. She was unable

to stop pacing. She wandered from room to room, and finally ended up in the living

room where she opened a window onto the spring night. Then she went outside to pace

the veranda from end to end. Her mind was tormented by images of John’s car smashed

at the foot of a mountain, off the edge of a cliff. Things didn’t always go the way they

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were supposed to, she thought. He could just slide off the road and roll to a stop in a

field, or crash into a light post while passing through some little town and wind up in a

hospital somewhere. She had no reason to think her plan was in the least bit practical,

even though it seemed so at the time.

She must have fallen asleep on the veranda swing. When she woke, the air was too

chilly to be comfortable, and she dragged herself up, her neck aching from its strained

position while she dozed. She had barely gotten in the front door when she heard a car

coming up the drive, saw the shadows leap around the living room as the headlights

swung around, saw the red and blue flashes pulsing on the walls.

She ran to the front door and opened it, knowing it couldn’t be John, knowing that if it

were John her future would be a purgatory as she thought about him gone, with another

woman, turned into a person she had never known and never thought possible.

Sheriff Stromberg was unfolding himself from his patrol car. He had his Stetson in his

hand and looked weary.

“Miss Esther! What are you doing up at a time like this?”

“I’ve been sick, Sheriff, I haven’t been able to sleep for several days now. Why are you

here? Come on in.”

The sheriff seemed outsized for the living room but managed to seat himself heavily on

a sofa. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and turned his hat around again and

again by the brim.

“Miss Esther, I have bad news. There is no easy way to say this. Your husband has

been killed in a car accident just to the west of Amarillo. I’m going to take care of

everything, don’t you worry a bit. I’ll have his body brought back here, it’s a courtesy

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from the Amarillo sheriff’s department, and they have already recommended a funeral

director there who will…well, take care of the body. If you want to do something

different, I’ll understand.”

Esther sat as if paralyzed. She could neither speak nor cry. After a minute, the sheriff

got up, went into the study, and used the telephone there.

He came back to the living room and sat down again.

“Miss Esther, I’m having my deputy pick up María and bring her here so you won’t be

alone tonight. I’ll sit here with you till she gets here.”

Esther finally found her throat had loosened enough for her to speak.

“What happened?”

“We don’t really know for sure. A car pulled out onto the highway from a farm road,

and the driver swears he didn’t see your husband’s car or he wouldn’t have pulled out.

He did say your husband must have been goin’ like a bat outta hell, and I know John had

a lead foot on the accelerator in that car of his. I’ve had to ticket him four or five times

for speeding. Anyway, it looks like he didn’t even brake, just tried to swerve past the

other vehicle, and he lost control of the car, I guess. That’s what provoked the wreck,”

ended the sheriff, hoping Esther wouldn’t ask any more, wouldn’t want to know about the

car flipping over again and again until it crashed into a lone cottonwood tree.

Of all the things Esther could ask, he didn’t expect the question she put to him.

“Was he alone?”

“Why, yes, he was.” The sheriff didn’t want to know what John was doing in that part

of the state, nor the reason behind the question. He was well aware of the pathetic façade

of Esther’s marriage, and he had overlooked some of John’s sidelines, as the sheriff

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thought of them, only because they didn’t amount to much and because the Hutton name

was loved and respected. There had been rumors that John was leaving Esther, and as it

was the sheriff never quite understood why they had stayed together for so many years,

but he thought that maybe she had loved him and perhaps didn’t know about John’s

infidelities, or maybe she didn’t care.

You never know in a marriage, he thought. Poor, plain Esther, a kind, generous gal to

be sure—look at all she did for Father James—but maybe not the sharpest tack in the box

when it came to men. You’d have thought, though, that Yancey would have gotten a

better take on John. Maybe he hadn’t cared, either, as long as Esther had a good-looker

as breeding stock.

Fat lot of good it had done, thought Stromberg. Here was this sad creature, childless,

her parents gone, not a damned thing to do around here. She ought to move to San

Antone, he thought.

Esther had sat in complete silence. A second patrol car came up the drive, and María

got out, hurrying to the house. Stromberg got up to open the door for her, and she went

straight to Esther.

“Oh, Miss Esther! I’m so sorry, I couldn’t believe the news. I’ll stay with you tonight,

I’ll sleep on the couch in the study.”

Esther seemed to come to. She took a deep breath and stood up.

“Nonsense. You’ll sleep in the guest room. I’ll be fine, I just need some rest. I can’t

quite take all this in right now, and I would very much like to be alone. Sheriff, please let

me know….when….you know, the body…”

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The sheriff hastened to reassure her, hoping to stall a real breakdown until he could

leave. These were things only women could take care of, he felt at a total loss when

someone came undone with grief. He felt clumsy and ineffective trying to comfort

anyone and wanted to leave the job to María. His cowardice embarrassed him, but

staying would have been even worse.

After the patrol cars were gone, Esther told María again that she was all right, and sent

her to bed. María looked stricken. How many times had John jollied her in the kitchen,

raved about her food, given her a peck on the cheek?

Esther walked down the hall toward John’s part of the house.

Again she gravitated to the bedroom. She sat on the bed and touched the covers. She

pulled the bedspread down and took up a pillow, pressing it to her face. Could she smell

John on the pillow? She wasn’t sure. She remembered the water-soaked pillow she had

had to throw out, stained with John’s blood.

Then she went into the closet. She took a suit coat off its hanger and held it. Yes, there

was the faintest trace of his after-shave scent, expensive, indescribable. Her skin seemed

to tingle with the prickly stubble of his face against her cheek when he had picked her up

in the study. She thought of the lift in his step as he left the house that morning, duffel

bag on his arm. He had smiled at her, that brilliant smile she knew so well. He had even

patted her behind, laughing, as he left, as if all were well now between them, as if a truce

had been called, as if it couldn’t matter to her that he would soon be gone forever, as if

she yearned for that as much as he did. His insensitivity to her feelings was epic.

She suddenly felt weak and sat down on the closet floor to keep from falling.

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What had his body been like? Was he broken, bleeding, did he die fast? Had he been in

terrible pain? Did he have time to wonder why he couldn’t brake? Of course he did. Had

he had time to think of her?

Then she realized she would not have been the one to go through his mind as he died.

She shook with fury. No one takes what’s mine, she thought bitterly. He had no right to

turn into someone else, no right to learn how to feel something for another person.

Esther was surprised to hear a low keening, a mournful sound of lament. It took her a

minute, sitting on the closet floor clinging to a suit coat, to realize it was coming from

her.

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24.

Esther stood, at last alone, in front of John’s grave. The spring wind had turned

unexpectedly chilly. By tomorrow it might be warm enough for swimming, but today

Esther pulled her coat closer around her.

The neat little cemetery, with its modest angels and pious inscriptions, spread out over a

gentle hill dotted with live oaks. As Esther looked out over the town, she realized that

there were probably more people buried in the cemetery than were living in Cormorant

Hill. Generation upon generation rested here, but the town itself was emptying out of its

young people, who went away to school and usually never came back once they found

out what the world was like in other places.

Esther didn’t know how she had gotten through the funeral and the burial. At one point,

as the coffin was carried from the church, the sense of its heaviness, the idea that John lay

there, inside, in all his familiarity, in the suit she had chosen, made her faint. Stromberg

had lifted her into his arms like a baby and took her to the patrol car until she recovered.

He had wanted to take her back to her house, but she refused. He insisted she remain in

his car as the final words were spoken and the coffin lowered into the ground next to

Yancey and Elaine, in the place meant for Esther.

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Esther turned away and got back into the patrol car, and the sheriff drove her home.

He would send a deputy to pick her car up at the church, he said, not to worry.

Esther had broken with tradition. There would be no gathering of mourners at her

home, because she couldn’t face it. There had been few enough mourners anyway, and it

was doubtful any of them had felt anything beyond a sense of duty to Esther and her

family. She had been taken aback, unpleasantly so, to see Father Hiller among the people

at the cemetery.

Esther had been panic-stricken at the idea that John’s mistress might show up. Would

her pregnancy show? Did everyone know about her?

Esther had not seen her. It was even possible that Stromberg suggested to her she not

make an appearance, assuming she was here and not in New Mexico, but Esther didn’t

want to ask. It was bad enough, she thought, that this woman had something of John to

fill the rest of her life.

The idea of “the rest of her life” hit her again. What would she do with hers?

At home finally, Esther sat quietly at the table and ate a sandwich. It was all she

wanted. The sense of the house’s emptiness was so acute that Esther, for the first time,

toyed with the idea of selling it.

But to be in a strange place surrounded by familiar furniture was more unbearable than

the empty house. Just wait, she told herself, something will come along to throw a

thread-bare blanket over the void. If I just wait a little, or maybe not so little, I can

survive this too.

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As the weeks and months passed, Esther did manage to acquire a degree of purpose.

Cormorant Hill might be on the down-sliding slope, but Ciudad Meseta was booming,

and many middle class Mexicans sent their children to school on the American side. The

quality of education was better on the whole, and becoming bilingual was a huge plus for

the children.

As a result, the Cormorant Hill elementary and high schools were doing better than the

town itself, and Esther decided to fund her educational scholarship program. School

authorities were thrilled, and Esther soon became a potentially important figure in the

tiny local school system. She refused to run for the school board, however, and no one

could change her mind.

A year later, Sheriff Stromberg keeled over with a heart attack and sent the whole town

into mourning. One of his two deputies took over until a new sheriff could be elected,

but in the absence of the big, quiet, succinct, and competent man, Esther no longer cared

who took his place. It seemed to her that she spent half her time attending funerals. The

sheriff, of course, had the send-off of the decade, and the mayor went so far as to declare

a day of remembrance for Stromberg, to be celebrated each year on the date of his death.

For a while, the town council fought over what street to name after him, only to give up

on the idea because the most important street in town was Main Street, and the rest of the

streets were more roads than anything else. The mayor objected to “Stromberg Road”

because it didn’t sound important enough, and the rest of the council refused to rename

the main drag. It looked for a while that Esther’s street might be a good candidate, but

then someone said it was the only street named for a national hero—Lincoln—and were

they going to be so provincial as to replace Lincoln with a sheriff?

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Esther read about the controversy in the local weekly newspaper and was bored by the

whole affair. She spent time evaluating the applications of scholarship candidates and

contributing money to the cause of art in San Antonio. Her days were filled with enough

distraction to keep the emptiness from howling, and she hoped and prayed that eventually

the deadening ash of time would drift down and cover the scarred landscape of her soul.

It was the nights that were unbearable. Vague and terrible dreams, not remembered but

leaving her sweaty and shaking; other nightmares remembered in complete clarity—a

strange woman living with Esther in the house, removing silverware and fine china,

taking pieces of furniture, only to destroy the items effortlessly while Esther tried

desperately to move, trying to stop her, unable to run except as through molasses or mud.

Huge dogs sitting in the hall that led to John’s area, not attacking her but terrifying her

with their cold stares and motionless bodies. She knew in these dreams that if she took a

single step the dogs would attack, and she inched her way backward painfully, slowly,

wondering if she would ever get to the study, which had turned into the apartment over

the garage, before the dogs knew she was moving. Getting to the room after ages, but

knowing that if she lifted her hand to shut the door, the movement would set off the dogs,

which strangely never varied in their distance from her even as she seemed to escape

them.

She took to staying up at night, reading until late, sitting on the veranda, working, doing

anything to put off the moment of sleep. As a result, she would fall asleep in exhaustion

in the morning hours, getting up around noon. It was curious, she thought, my routine is

beginning to resemble John’s.

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It was around one o’clock on a summer day that María came into the dining room to tell

Esther she was retiring, that she was needed at home. Consuelo would stay on since she

now knew how to cook everything María had learned from Elaine. The doors to the

veranda were open, and the warm smell of dried grass floated through. It had been a bad

year, with drought and brush fires. The desultory ceiling fan stirred the air.

Esther was not surprised. Something had been bothering María for weeks, some kind

of family crisis or trouble. She asked if there was anything she could do.

María wrung her hands.

“I don’t think so, Miss Esther, you’ve done enough for us already. It’s Santiago, he was

such a good boy, but now…I don’t mean that like it sounds, of course he’s still a good

boy, it’s just that he seems so sad all the time, he’s lost his spirit somehow. And his

mother, bless her, she needs a lot of care and Santiago can’t do it all. I don’t think she

will live much longer, and I’m afraid to leave Santiago alone at the house. He’s gotten

work at the town hall, doing the maintenance and everything now that Sam has that

disease where he can’t remember anything, but he is so down in the dumps all the time.”

If anyone but María had told her this, she would have suspected some kind of subtle

extortion attempt, based on knowledge of the unspoken secret. But María was

completely above board, and Esther wanted no part of the trouble with Santiago. So she

thanked María for her years of good service and insisted on giving her a very hefty check

as a bonus, enough money to allow María to add to her savings account and up the

interest from it considerably. María tearfully said her goodbyes to Esther a week later

and begged her not to hesitate to let her know if she was needed for something special.

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It ran through Esther’s mind that those special events, such as holiday gatherings or

elegant dinners, were long gone from the agenda.

Consuelo, who was chattier and less discreet than María, revealed not long afterward

that they were deeply worried about Santiago. Even with María home and helping with

his mother, Santiago seemed to sink ever further into a miasma of sadness. He had cried

one night and confessed to Consuelo that he thought about suicide. The family asked him

again and again what was troubling him, but his answer was always the same: he didn’t

know. He had broken off with his girlfriend of years, said Consuelo, when he had stopped

working here at the house, and Consuelo was sure that was the problem—a broken heart,

a bad decision, and too late to do anything about it because the girlfriend had since

married.

Esther understood how bored Consuelo must be, rattling around in the house with just

Esther there, but she didn’t want to hear any more about Santiago. She didn’t want to be

the recipient of Consuelo’s home-grown gossip. She decided the best thing to do was

have Consuelo come in the morning, do some cleaning, prepare lunch, and then leave for

home right after washing the dishes. Since she received the same pay, Consuelo was

thrilled with the arrangement.

Esther began going more often to San Antonio to attend cultural events and stay

overnight. At first she thought being in different surroundings would help her sleep.

She discovered that the hotel reminded her not of her childhood trips with her parents, but

of Herrera and inevitably of John. She felt like a person devoid of skin, each tiny breeze

or touch sending pain shooting through her. It was evident, she thought grimly and with

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some irritation, that a lot of work would have to go into ridding herself of this mad

obsession. And time. She would need plenty of time.

Near the end of March on one rainy morning, Esther contemplated celebrating her

fiftieth birthday by really branching out and taking a cruise of some sort. It struck her

that in spite of her wealth and freedom, she had been nowhere except San Antonio and

Austin, or Ciudad Meseta, and she wondered why travel had no appeal for her. It was as

if her very restlessness had taken root and would tolerate no deviation from its familiar

battleground.

She decided that at least she would have one of those fabulous chocolate cakes that

Consuelo produced from one of Elaine’s best recipes. She remembered, amused, reading

somewhere that someone had said there were no tragedies in life that a slice of chocolate

cake didn’t help. She laughed out loud. In the kitchen she finished putting the coffee

into the filter and turned on the coffee pot. As soon as Consuelo turned up, Esther would

ask her to make the cake. And why not, she thought, I’ll invite the members of the

school board, the principal of the high school, it was time she had them over after all the

years of collaborating with education in Cormorant Hill.

The idea was so attractive to her that she decided she would further celebrate the

occasion by bringing out the magnificent tablecloth of real lace that Elaine always used

for Christmas dinner. Then there was that wonderful fine china Elaine saved for special

occasions, a rich ivory color with gold borders.

Esther was pleasantly surprised to find herself enthusiastic. A small birthday party with

the elegant trappings that only Elaine could have chosen, a trip to exotic places—where

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would she go? Lying on the sand by the ocean sounded deadly to Esther, the epitome of

boredom. Maybe in the summertime a cruise to Alaska. She had read that it was a

unique experience, and it would give her a chance to see a tiny bit of Canada as well.

Esther heard Consuelo coming in through the kitchen door and turned to greet her.

Consuelo seemed in very fine spirits, and Esther wondered why. A boyfriend at last?

Consuelo latched on to the idea of a small party with even more enthusiasm than

Esther.

“You seem happy as a lark today, Consuelo,” remarked Esther.

“I am, I am, Miss Esther, María and I are both very happy today. Santiago is better

now, he even seems back to his old self almost, you know how worried we got when his

mother died. He was bad enough before that, but when she died we were so afraid he

would do something crazy.”

Consuelo could barely bring herself to mention suicide.

“Well, that’s wonderful, Consuelo, but let’s start planning this party, shall we? Guess

which cake I’m going to want!”

“You don’t have to tell me, the chocolate cake, right?”

“Yes! How about two days from now? It’s before my birthday, but it’s easier to

arrange something for a Saturday afternoon if I’m going to invite the school board…let’s

see, do you still have any of that Belgian chocolate or am I going to have to make a trip

to San Antonio?”

“I think I have everything for the cake, Miss Esther. I’ll go by the store tomorrow

before I get here and pick up some eggs.”

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The house suddenly seemed to come alive, and Esther realized that at last, after years,

she was able to sleep more nights than not, greet more morning suns, hear more roosters

announce the new day.

Early Saturday evening, Esther sat contentedly amidst the debris of her little birthday

party. Her guests had left, and the table was littered with plates and coffee cups, the

pedestal cake plate held only crumbs. Gaily colored paper and ribbon were the only

evidence of the thoughtful gifts brought by guests—a leather-bound journal, a book by

Pearl Buck, a Xerox copy of the front page of a San Antonio newspaper published on the

day she was born. Esther was astonished—she had specified that no one had to bring a

present—and felt that these people with whom she had worked were possibly her friends

as well.

She had been pleased that the conversation had ranged widely and held much laughter.

She had been worried at the last minute that the event would prove stilted, cursory. But

instead, she found herself lost in excited conversation with people who admired her

contribution to education in the little town. Perhaps it’s time, she thought, for me to get

out of this self-imposed exile and find out what it’s like to have friends.

She knew it was a bad idea, but she poured herself more coffee. No rest for the wicked,

she thought with a burble of laughter, I’ll be wired after all this caffeine.

It was still early in the evening but pitch black outside. She heard the sound of a car

coming up the drive, and in a flash her heart was pounding out of control as the image of

John, coming home once more in the nighttime, stabbed her to the bone. It was the

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unexpectedness of these terrible moments that left her gasping for breath, coming out of

nowhere, triggered by the most insignificant sounds, the faintest of aromas, a shadow,

breeze in the trees.

Angry with herself for her weakness, she went to the front door and flung it open. It

was probably someone who had forgotten something at the party, maybe someone

coming to pick up Consuelo. At that thought, she prayed it wouldn’t be Santiago.

She didn’t recognize the car, but she did know the driver. It was Father Hiller, a bit

fatter, a bit slower, a knitted cap covering his growing baldness and a good quality black

woolen coat covering him from stem to stern.

“Mrs. Bainbridge!” he exclaimed happily. “I hear congratulations are in order!”

Esther was at a loss for words. Did he mean her birthday?

Hiller made his way toward the front porch. His breath in the cold air came in fast

puffs of white, and he certainly seemed too winded for the ground he had to cover to get

there.

“What can I do for you, Father?” asked Esther coolly.

“Well, let’s start by going in the house. This weather is too cold!”

Esther was stunned by his blatancy. The man must be a lunatic.

Hiller pushed past her and went into the living room, removing gloves and rubbing his

hands before the dying embers in the fireplace.

“Would you mind terribly, dear lady, if I had some coffee? Could we perhaps sit and

talk?”

“Come into the study, Father, we can talk there if you like,” replied Esther, ignoring the

request for coffee.

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Hiller looked like he was heading toward the couch, so Esther took his arm and

detoured him toward the chair in front of the desk. She didn’t want him on the couch, she

wanted him less comfortable and more like a supplicant. She was sure he was going to

ask for some kind of donation. What gall, she thought, he’s got the sensitivity of a block

of cement.

“Such a nice home, Mrs. Bainbridge, it’s a pleasure to be here. I know we haven’t

spoken in several years, but allow me to express my deepest condolences on your

husband’s untimely death. I went to the burial, but you seemed so very upset that I

decided not to intrude further.

“And of course, let me congratulate you on your birthday. You have such wonderful

friends, there’s no doubt the bunch of you are Cormorant Hill’s intellectual backbone.”

Esther was so amazed she became amused. What a consummate gossiper this man

was! There didn’t seem to be anything he didn’t know about and nothing he was not able

to use to flatter and ingratiate.

“Thank you, Father, I’m sure your opinion is somewhat exaggerated,” she answered

dryly. “Exactly why are you here tonight?”

“Well, you know, the life of a priest can be a pretty dull business usually, but once in a

while we get the chance to make a real difference in someone’s life. I wanted to share

with you one of my many anecdotes,” he laughed gaily, “and perhaps you’ll see your way

to changing your mind about helping our little efforts over at the church.”

“Father, really, it will be a waste of time on your part, but by all means, forge ahead.

It’s odd, isn’t it, that Father James always seemed to meet each day with such vigor and

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enthusiasm, it would be a long haul to think of him as ever being bored by the dullness of

a priest’s life.”

“Ah, well, he was a very young man and just starting out. Give him a chance to learn

what people are really like, and we’ll see how enthusiastic he is as he grows old. But

then,” finished the priest, “maybe you’re right, I feel old, tired, and ugly, there’s no doubt

I am way past my prime.”

No doubt about it is right, thought Esther, this man is insane. No wonder he had stayed

so long at Our Lady of Sorrow, heaven forbid this load of pessimism should be dumped

on some larger, unsuspecting church. She wondered how the parishioners managed to

put up with the man.

“Anyway, as I was saying, sometimes we do manage to touch a life. Not long ago I had

the opportunity to help a man who was burdened by despair and guilt. It took me a long

time to convince him that God loves all sinners who sincerely repent, but it’s also a fact

that people look for solace because they want to find it, and they’ll do anything to believe

that forgiveness is attainable. All one needs to do is to make God’s all-embracing love

clear to them, and their souls are freed.”

Esther breathed a sigh of irritation.

“Father, how wonderful you have found your time here worthwhile in spite of all, but

this has nothing to do with me, and I’m a little tired. Can we get to the point? Am I

correct in assuming you want a donation?”

“Please, bear with me for just a minute. The man I helped has been coming to the

church for a number of years, but he has always seemed to be suffering the tortures of the

damned. It was an odd fact that he never went to confession, and I was pretty sure that

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was his problem. Confession,” he added, as if imparting a sudden pearl of wisdom, “is

good for the soul, you know. Well, to make a long story short, I managed to convince

this man that he needed to confess to God. Lordy, what a job it was getting through to

him!

“I understand his reluctance now. He confessed to me that he had killed a man. You can

imagine my surprise, this isn’t your run-of-the-mill confession! When I insisted he tell

me what happened, it turned out he had been forced to do it. Not that anyone put a gun to

his head, but for all practical purposes, it was the same thing. Seems he was working for

someone who did him a huge service, in fact saved his mother’s life. But once this great

service had been done, his employer ordered him to participate in a murder.

“The way I look at it, he had practically no choice in the matter. All he had to do was

alter the brakes of the victim’s automobile, and even then it wasn’t a sure thing. Who

knows what can happen?

“Unfortunately for my parishioner, the car had a serious crash and the driver was in fact

killed. I guess there wasn’t really an investigation into the accident, either, since the dead

man was something of a name. That shouldn’t surprise us, I guess. Way back when

Lyndon Johnson ran for Congress, even the dead rose up to vote in these southern Texas

counties! And look how far he got, all the way to the White House!” A peal of laughter

lit up Hiller’s face.

The irrelevant thought crossed Esther’s mind that Santiago too had known it was not a

sure thing those failing brakes would do the job.

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25.

It was a good thing Esther’s initial reaction was one of icy rationality instead of panic

or fury.

“Exactly what do you have in mind?” she inquired coolly.

Perhaps Hiller had expected some other response. He seemed taken aback by Esther’s

business-like attitude.

“Why, to tell you the truth, I hadn’t really thought about it, I mean a money amount,

because, well, in my experience people need to think over things like this. It’s often best

for the full…ah, the full meaning to sink in before…before asking for a donation.” He

seemed to have trouble calling this particular spade by its name. “If you like, we could

meet at another time, when you’ve had a chance to think about an offer.”

“Excellent idea,” said Esther. She rose, took father Hiller by the arm, and ushered him

to the front door. “Make sure you bundle up, Father, the March weather can be

treacherous, and you don’t seem to be in very good shape, frankly.”

Hiller turned on the porch to face Esther.

“I’ll call you, or should I just come by unannounced? How about tomorrow?”

“This is the last time I’m going to receive you here, Father, I think from now on we can

do our business by phone or at the parish office.”

“Whatever you prefer, Mrs. Bainbridge, just as long as you understand that we will be

doing business.”

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After Hiller had gone, Esther wondered how she had managed to maintain her façade.

Her hands shook as she took the coffee things to the kitchen and emptied what remained

of the coffee from the pot. She washed her cup and spoon, put them away, and decided

there was no hope of sleep. She took all the plates, cups and silverware from the party,

washed and dried them, and put them away too. She washed the pedestal cake plate and

set it to one side to dry, then checked the lace tablecloth for stains or chocolate crumbs.

She shook it out vigorously at the kitchen door and folded it carefully for Consuelo to

wash by hand. She gathered up the torn gift wrapping and ribbon and shoved it all into

the trash can. One good wipe over the dining table with a dusting cloth and the room was

clean.

Esther took her gifts to her room and lit a gas fire in the fireplace grate, a modernization

she found much better than having to battle with real logs. I wonder how I can do all

these things as if everything was all right, she wondered.

She took up a pen and opened the leather-bound journal. She didn’t know why she did

it, but she wrote down the date and what she had been told by Hiller about Santiago. She

wrote down that he was going to blackmail her. Only the hard facts, none of her own

thoughts. Then she got up, opened the closet, and reached up to pull down a hatbox from

the shelf. She no longer wore hats, that had gone out a million years ago, but the box

was handy as a hiding place. She tucked the journal inside beneath a gauzy summer

wide-brimmed wedding hat covered with delicate pink silk roses. Gorgeous hat, she

thought inconsequentially, fat chance I’ll ever wear it again.

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She found she was both unable to sleep and unable to think about the significance of

what had just happened.

By the time it dawned, she had almost finished the book by Buck. She would have read

it all if she hadn’t had to go back and read page after page over again after discovering

she hadn’t taken in a single idea. Her eyes skimmed the pages, but her mind was

elsewhere, in a daze.

She fell asleep as the sun began to shine into her room.

Around one o’clock, Consuelo knocked gently on her door. She was worried that

Esther was still in her bedroom. Esther called out to her that she was fine, had too much

coffee, couldn’t fall sleep until very late. She dozed again and got up at three-thirty.

Consuelo was gone but had left a plate of onion quiche and a home-made cream of

carrot soup. Esther noticed that a note was on the dining room table. It said that three

people had phoned Esther: a newspaper reporter wanting to know if there was a new

scholarship candidate for the fall semester, someone from the party thanking her for a

good time, and Father Hiller.

Esther put the food in the refrigerator, poured herself some coffee, and went into the

study. She phoned the newspaper and left the names of the scholarship candidates, two

of them, for the reporter. She made a brief call to the polite guest, telling the woman that

it had been a pleasure having everyone over. Then she sat down to think about what to

do with Hiller.

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What alarmed her was the sway this man had over Santiago. How hard would it be, she

thought, to convince him that the only real atonement was confession to the authorities?

She was appalled that it had never occurred to her that Santiago might tell anyone about

the crime. How could she have suspected, anyway, when he risked revealing himself as

an accomplice? It had never crossed her mind that there were other ways to confess,

other people who might listen.

I was too much around Father James, she thought. More than once he talked about the

sacredness of trust that the confessional represented. I cast all priests in his image, she

thought, that was a mistake. I should have known the barrel has its putrid fruit.

As much as she wanted to avoid coming to the conclusion, there was no denying that

the only way to figure out how to get herself off this hook was to get to know Hiller and

to find his weak spots. The idea sent a wave of nausea through Esther. The man repelled

her in every possible way. That was going to be a problem. She was going to have to

remain neutral, or as neutral as feasible, because if she enraged this man, she didn’t know

what he might do. Every word, every act, would have to be subjected to a cold analysis

before she made a move. Who was it who said to keep your friends close, and your

enemies closer? She couldn’t remember. It was a tactic that required a degree of

subterfuge Esther was not sure she could pull off.

Okay, she thought, I’ll take this one step at a time. First I’ll find out what the wretch

wants. Or rather, how much…

Esther dialed the parish house office. She heard Hiller answer.

“Esther Bainbridge here.” It was all she managed to get out. What did one say when

polite conversation had become pointless, when niceties meant less than nothing?

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“It’s nice to hear from you, dear lady! I thought we might continue our discussion of

yesterday.”

“I can stop by the parish office tomorrow morning after ten.”

“I was hoping it would be sooner than that, do you have any free time this afternoon? I

understand you do have a lot of free time.”

The man was a nightmare, thought Esther.

“I could make it around five-thirty, but I can’t stay long. I have a business

appointment after that.”

“What, on Sunday? Heavens!”

Damn, thought Esther. One of the first things she would have to do was to eliminate

the knee-jerk tendency to offer unsolicited justifications. That’s what women are brought

up to do, she thought angrily, put everyone’s feelings first and never say “no” without a

doctoral dissertation on the reasons behind it. This foul specimen is going to jump on

every weakness I reveal.

“At five-thirty then,” she said, and hung up the phone. She took a sip of coffee, now

only tepid, with a trembling hand. I already came off badly, but I’ve learned something,

she thought. He’s showing his game as much as I am. He uses information about me to

see if he can make me angry, to establish control over me. That crack about my free time

was meant to see if he can put me on the defensive. If I’m always explaining myself, I

won’t notice what I should be seeing—how to get to him.

My God, she thought, I almost told him I did business every day of the week. Twice in

a conversation that short he had me making excuses for myself!

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It was now ludicrous to her that she had thought John a dangerous man. John had been

adept at manipulating, lying, playing on the emotions of others, even violent, but there

had been a driven quality about him, a kind of peculiar directness once his bluff was

called. Esther was sure that had he not become entangled with that Indian woman—she

found herself unable to think the word “love”—he would have figured out a way to

weasel his way into her heart and her bed yet again. But this priest was another matter all

together.

Esther realized she was going to have to organize herself somehow. She went to her

bedroom, took down the hatbox, and got out the journal. She spent an hour carefully

noting her thoughts about the conversation with Hiller and her own behavior.

She pushed the hatbox back onto the shelf but took the journal to the study. She

decided to use it to steady herself. She found that writing down her ideas made things

clearer to her. She put the journal into a desk drawer and began to get ready for her

meeting with Hiller.

She dressed informally but with her usual careful attention to her hair and make-up.

She didn’t want to over-dress—that would show weakness. People had been used to

seeing her at the parish office and around the countryside with Father James, so a visit to

the office would only make others think she was taking up her charitable activities again.

She stopped with brush in mid-air. Father James. Was there some way she could use

her friendship with him to eliminate Hiller? They had only exchanged brief notes at

Christmas, the brevity on her part because she felt like a fraud. She wasn’t the person he

thought she was, the friend he loved. She had not answered his letters, but she could tell

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by the short messages he sent that he thought it was because she had been so hurt when

he left without giving her enough warning.

It was an idea worth thinking about. She would have to file it away mentally until she

could find a use for it.

It was cold when Esther arrived at the parish office. Hiller had a space heater going,

and he had even gotten out some mugs for coffee and had the pot freshly made. Quite the

host, thought Esther, while he bleeds his victims.

She had prepared mentally to see the office again for the first time since Father James

had left, so the familiar setting didn’t cause too much discomfort. The good, solid

second-hand desk, the open bookcase, the folding chairs, it was all as James had left it. A

calendar of church events on the wall was also a left-over, irrelevant now. Esther

wondered why Hiller hadn’t made up a new one. The only things on the desk were a pen

set, rather nice, a notebook that seemed well-thumbed, and a tear-away daily calendar.

Hiller was dressed in slacks and a long-sleeved shirt. He gallantly offered Esther a chair

and coffee. He wanted to take Esther’s coat, but she refused.

Esther sat down.

“Let’s dispense with the polite formalities, shall we? Exactly what do you want?”

This was new ground for Hiller. In the past, his victims had always been good

Catholics who treated him with at least a modicum of respect if only from habit. They

were people who had confessed because they were sincerely troubled, and they certainly

never wanted what they confessed to become common knowledge.

This woman was not a Catholic. She didn’t respect him and she didn’t care if he was a

priest or a bricklayer. He knew he was playing a highly risky game with very dangerous

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information, but on the other hand, he had a witness to Esther’s crime, and she didn’t

know what that witness would do.

“Fine, whatever you want,” he said, opening a desk drawer and placing his notebook

inside.

Esther was not a fan of television and had only purchased a small t.v. for Consuelo to

watch in the kitchen while she cooked or cleaned up. Nor was she a fan of crime fiction.

She realized that she was woefully behind the times in that sense, but she didn’t

particularly care. She enjoyed listening to the news on the radio and when the conditions

were right she managed to get a classical music station from San Antonio.

She was surprised, then, to find herself noticing that Hiller did not completely close the

drawer. She made a snap decision.

“Oh, Father, I’m afraid I just can’t go into this right now. I have a family problem that

needs to be taken care of, so I want to thank you for your time, you’ve been much too

kind, and I’ll be in touch as soon as I can. Tomorrow at the latest. Please forgive me for

disturbing your rest.”

She got up and left, leaving Hiller sitting in astonishment first, and then fury.

“Hell’s bells!” he shouted when she had driven away. He slammed a fist down on the

desktop and yanked open the drawer. He took out the tape recorder and turned it off.

Then he erased the few phrases on the tape and shoved it and the recorder back into

drawer and closed it roughly. He heard the machine slide forward and hit the front of the

drawer.

How had she known, he wondered. It didn’t really matter, he had edited the tape of

Santiago’s confession so as to leave out indications that he had been speaking to Hiller,

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and he had all the pertinent damning information in Santiago’s own voice. But still, this

meant Esther was much smarter than he thought at first. She might be the spoiled,

uptight aging moneybag he originally took her for, but by God, there was more to her

than that!

Hiller felt a slight chill that had nothing to do with the weather. He wondered if he

hadn’t overstepped himself this time.

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26.

Esther got home and took the telephone off the hook. She didn’t want Hiller trying to

call her until she had a chance to think about what had just happened.

Until she noticed the half-open drawer, it had not occurred to her that this unspeakable

man might record their conversations. It would be all the proof he needed to implicate

her. God! She could imagine it: “Why, yes, Father, here’s your hush money, don’t you

dare tell anyone I killed my husband John!” How Hiller could resort to recording their

conversations without getting himself into hot water was another issue, but what did it

matter to her? After all, he might be an extortionist, but she was a murderer. Even if the

whole thing blew up in Hiller’s face, Esther was the one with more to lose.

The possibility of being recorded on the sly changed everything. She could no longer

have any contact with Hiller over the phone or at the parish office. Oh, Lord, she

thought, I’m going to have to see him here. Am I going to have to search him for hidden

devices as well? Dear God! The idea was horrific. To imagine running her hands over

his clothing made her stomach lurch and her saliva turn bitter. She was simply going to

have to chance it, watch her language like a hawk, and hope the bastard wasn’t wired.

A sharp, slightly hysterical bray of laughter escaped her. I guess I could always write

him notes while he’s here, she thought. That way I wouldn’t have to say a thing. My

mind must be coming unglued, next I’ll entertain the notion of putting up a blackboard!

If I really get angry with him, I’ll run my nails down the blackboard and ruin his

recording!

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Esther began to feel lightheaded and realized she had had nothing but caffeine all day.

No wonder I’m getting such crazy ideas, she thought, I need to get something in me

besides coffee.

While she ate the food retrieved from the refrigerator, she sat at the kitchen counter and

wondered what to do next. She was going to have to phone Hiller and meet up with him

at some point, so she might as well get it over with.

The real problem, she thought, is that there is a witness to what I’ve done. She

wondered if she should speak to Santiago and let him know what was happening. It was

his hide as well as hers, and if he knew that Hiller was using his confession, it would

undercut any moral ground Hiller held in Santiago’s eyes. What would Santiago do with

that information? Ay, there’s the rub, she thought. Would he angrily confront Hiller and

wind up being an extortion victim himself? Or would his raw and stinging conscience

take him directly to the authorities? Esther remembered Consuelo’s worry when

Santiago mentioned suicide; anyone whose sense of moral duty was powerful enough to

make death seem like a reasonable out would have no fear of legal punishment, might

even welcome it once the farce of Hiller’s moral guidance was seen in all its hypocrisy.

Maybe, she thought, it would depend on how I touch on the subject with him. Esther

put her dishes in the kitchen sink and went to the study. She got out the journal and

began writing down possible scenarios, trying to figure out which one was most likely,

and which one could be most easily manipulated. She came to no conclusions, but the

mental gymnastics once more made her choices clearer.

As night came, she replaced the telephone receiver. No sooner had she done so than the

phone rang. She picked it up, knowing who it was.

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“Mrs. Bainbridge, this is Father Hiller. I’m afraid you left me pretty confused this

afternoon, the way you shot off there, but perhaps we could make another date.”

“Why, of course, sorry I had so little time. How about tomorrow at the same time, here

at the house?”

Hiller hesitated. His plan was blown to smithereens by this ploy, but he didn’t see that

he had a choice. Besides, he had enough dirt on the woman to get what he wanted right

now, so what the hell.

“Sure. I’ll be there.”

I’ll bet you will, she thought as she rang off. She wondered if it hadn’t been a mistake

asking him to come to the house when no one would be around. Maybe she should ask

Consuelo to come back for a couple of hours in the afternoon. Erring on the side of

caution seemed best to Esther.

The next day, Esther arranged for Consuelo to return to the house from four-thirty to

six-thirty. She said she would be receiving Father Hiller, and it was not proper for them

to be together alone. Consuelo readily accepted this explanation as highly legitimate.

“What do you think about him, Consuelo? You go to Our Lady of Sorrow, don’t you?”

“Yes, Miss Esther, sometimes I do, it’s easier than crossing to Ciudad Meseta, but you

know, no one could take Father James’ place. I don’t know exactly what Santiago has

been talking to Father Hiller about, but he acts like he has recovered his old self. God

forgive me, but there is something about Father Hiller I don’t like. I just can’t decide

what it is.”

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“You may be right. The contrast with Father James is pretty unfortunate. So, Santiago

is doing better now, no more depression and thoughts of suicide?”

Consuelo crossed herself, her face a map of alarm and worry.

“No, thank God, no. Whatever was eating him up seems to have gone away. I just

pray it won’t ever come back. He wouldn’t confide in us, and we couldn’t help him

because we didn’t know what was wrong. It was like the bottom to his world had just

dropped away.

“He did say yesterday that he wanted to speak to you, I don’t know if he wants a job or

what, but with this talk about Father Hiller, I almost forgot to mention it.”

Esther was stunned. It ran through her head that Santiago was an accomplice of Hiller,

but it seemed too unlikely to take seriously. What now, for God’s sake, she thought.

“If he could come by tomorrow morning, that would be fine,” said Esther. Surely by

that time she would have taken the measure of this looming disaster.

Father Hiller drove up at the appointed time, and Esther showed him into the study.

She ordered coffee for them both—if she hadn’t, it would have seemed very odd to

Consuelo, and Esther didn’t want anything looking odd at this point.

Once the coffee had been brought in and the study door closed, Esther took her own cup

and left Hiller to fend for himself.

She sat down at the desk and waited.

“Well,” said Hiller, seated in front of the desk, “I guess we can get down to brass tacks.”

He was uncomfortable, and he was afraid it showed. This is one cold bitch, he thought.

No point in beating around the bush.

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“I thought you might give me a monthly sum, and since I’m a reasonable man, you can

make an offer first and we can take it from there.”

Esther leaned back and crossed her arms over her chest.

“I’d prefer that you give me a number,” she said.

“Okay, if you want it that way, I had in mind a thousand dollars a month. It’s not a big

amount, and you should be able to afford it nicely.”

“For how long?” asked Esther, although she knew the answer.

“That should be obvious. For as long as I’m here, and by the looks of things, I

probably won’t be sent anywhere else. Nobody wants to come to these clod-hopper

parishes, so I guess you’re stuck with me.”

“I see.” Esther stood up. “Why don’t I get back to you by phone tomorrow and let you

know?”

“That’s not good enough.” Hiller remained seated. “We can cut the bullshit here. This

is not some kind of business proposition where you get to pick and choose. You either

agree or you don’t. If you don’t, then one way or another, and I don’t want to go into the

details, it’s going to come to the attention of the sheriff that you killed your husband.”

Wordlessly Esther pulled out her checkbook from a desk drawer and made it out for

one thousand dollars, payable to the bearer. She handed it over to Hiller.

“Thank you,” he said, smiling. “I guess I’ll be going, then. Don’t bother to see me

out.”

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27.

Is there to be no peace, wondered Esther the next morning. She had forgotten about

Santiago and his desire to speak to her, and she certainly didn’t want to see him or hear

what he had to say. She had too much on her plate right now, once more in a situation

that shouted for some kind of action, but she was at a loss. What could she possibly do to

get rid of Hiller?

Whatever it was, she would have to do it alone this time.

She wanted to tell Consuelo that she felt tired and would see Santiago at some other

time, but her curiosity got the better of her. Was he here to threaten her? Did he

represent one more problem she was going to have to deal with, one more person to pay

off?

Esther dressed quickly in jeans and a shirt. She had asked Consuelo to send him to the

study. As she entered, Santiago immediately stood up, looking her in the eyes with his

once-familiar calm gaze. He seemed a little thinner, but the weight loss looked good on

him. She wondered if he was worried about developing diabetes like his mother.

She sat down at the desk without a word.

“Good morning, Miss Esther,” said Santiago, remaining on his feet. “I’m sorry to

bother you like this, but I needed to see you. I’m not here to ask for anything,” he hurried

to explain. “I just wanted to tell you that, well, I forgive you.”

“What?” Esther would have expected anything but this.

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“For a long time, I was angry with you because I felt you used my mother’s illness to

force me to….to help you kill your husband. And I was miserable with the guilt of it. I

didn’t think I could keep on living like that—I bought my mother’s health with another

man’s life. It was terrible. The better she got, the worse I felt. I think I might have done

something to myself, as if I hadn’t sinned enough, if it hadn’t been for Father Hiller. He

finally made me see that God can forgive anything if the sinner really repents, and he

made me realize that I am in no position to judge you either. I don’t understand why you

asked me to do what I did, but that is something between you and God. I hope you

forgive me for hating you, I am the last person on earth to pass judgment on you. I hope

somehow you can find the peace I’ve found.”

Esther didn’t know what bothered her more, the gall of this man Hiller, or the self-

righteousness of Santiago and his forgiveness.

“If you felt that way, why didn’t you go to the police and turn us in?” asked Esther.

“Did you feel guilty but you didn’t want to go to jail?”

“No, it wasn’t that. I didn’t care what happened to me, but it would have killed my

mother to find out how I paid for her treatment. And María and Consuelo, I don’t know

how they could have lived with the shame of it all. It seemed easier for me to kill myself

and leave a note with some kind of made-up reason, anything but the truth. Even after

Mother died, I couldn’t bring that shame on my family. I’d rather burn in Hell for the sin

of suicide.

“But that doesn’t matter now, Miss Esther. It’s out of my hands and in God’s. That’s

all I wanted to tell you.”

“Why did you come to tell me this?” Esther asked.

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Santiago was taken aback by the question.

“I guess, well, maybe I hoped you could find the forgiveness I’ve found…”

“Let’s see. You come here, you unburden your soul to me, I assume you are aware that

I am not a Catholic. I can’t help but wonder if what you really need to do is place all the

blame on me now.

“So, everything is fine for everyone but me. Do you have any idea what you’ve done?

I guess you don’t, and I guess it wouldn’t matter anyway, since I’m the guilty party here,

apparently now the only guilty party. You know, for a while there I thought you might be

in cahoots with Hiller, but you actually sound sincere. Christ! Does Hiller know you are

here, by the way, was this his idea?”

“Why are you so angry with me? What are you talking about? Father Hiller didn’t tell

me to come, I came on my own.” Santiago looked perplexed and uncomfortable. He

didn’t seem to understand at all the direction the conversation was taking.

“I’ll tell you what I’m talking about. Father Hiller told me about your confession, and I

think he made tapes of it. He didn’t say so, but how else can he be so sure he can

convince the police of what we’ve done? He isn’t stupid enough to rely just on his word

against mine, and you can bet your booties he knows you won’t volunteer any

information to them unless you’re forced to. He must know every detail of your desire to

spare your family from shame.”

Santiago slowly sank into a chair, as if his legs were becoming too weak to hold him up.

“Why would he tell you about my confession? You’re lying! You must be crazy, too,

why would he tape what I told him?”

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“Because, you idiot, he’s blackmailing me. I gave him a thousand dollars last night to

keep quiet. Of course he doesn’t want you to go on your own to the authorities, it would

send us both to jail and cut off his supply of cash. He’d rather me be around to pay up,

and he wants you as the ace up his sleeve. As long as I pay him, you can go ahead and

enjoy your forgiveness and peace of mind, but if I stop, he’s going to start telling you

how it’s your moral obligation to give yourself up and tell all. Even if you refused, it’s

too late now, he’s got the dirt on both of us. If you think I’m lying, go ask him. I’ll give

you this house and everything in it if this is not the absolute truth.”

It was one of those strange things in life that in spite of what Esther had done to

Santiago, he knew intuitively that she was not a liar. The worst, though, was the bone-

deep conviction, something Santiago simply could not have afforded to see on his own

without risking his salvation, that Hiller was indeed genuinely bad, that every tiny

disquieting feeling he provoked in others, every uncomfortable hint about his real

character, was true.

Santiago felt his world crumble slowly beneath his feet. If Esther’s betrayal of him had

been monstrous, there were no words for what Hiller had done.

Esther could see Santiago shrink into himself. He seemed to fade. His face was gray

and his hands shook gently. She was sorry for him, but she didn’t see why she had to be

the only one caught in this trap. At least hearing the truth would put Santiago outside the

sphere of Hiller’s influence. It was obvious that Santiago had his own reasons for not

turning himself in, reasons more powerful than anything Hiller might come up with, as

long as Santiago knew what kind of snake Hiller was.

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Santiago looked around the room as if seeing it for the first time. It didn’t seem

possible that this woman had twice destroyed each of his assumptions about life, and both

times it happened in this place. He thought back to the hard-working, straight-forward

young man he used to be, and he found that person despicable for his innocence, his

stupidity, his silly willingness to think good of people. What a fool he had been, but life

had kicked him in the teeth soon enough and let him know where things stood. Thank

God his mother was dead, thank God she wouldn’t see what kind of man her son was

turning out to be.

Suddenly he noticed he was alone. Esther had left the study. Soon he too got up and

walked out of the house.

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28.

Esther had never felt so trapped. She was in a situation she could share with no one,

there was no one to rely on or to give advice.

For the first time, she realized her limitations as a woman and as someone who didn’t

know much about the everyday world. She had no idea if the evidence Hiller claimed to

have was even valid in a court of law, but it didn’t matter a whit. Esther couldn’t afford

to put him to the test, couldn’t afford having Santiago interrogated, and above all, she

was panic-stricken at the thought that her family name would end with her, the last of her

breed, on a note of scandal too terrible to contemplate. She had put everything her

parents had worked for in danger of being forgotten in the whirlwind of talk that would

erupt if it were discovered that Esther was a murderer.

If she had been a man, she could actively seek out something to hold over Hiller, or she

could threaten him, or even better, she could kill him. Esther was painfully aware that

John’s killing had been due to the wildest of fortuitous circumstances, a situation not

likely to recur ever again. If anything was going to be done, Esther was going to have to

do it herself. And she didn’t know how.

She knew nothing about Hiller, and she couldn’t afford to hire Herrera to dig up any

dirt on him—there was bound to be a load of it, too—because if anything happened to

Hiller afterward, Herrera was bound to suspect. It might be coincidence that John died

after Herrera had investigated his background, but if it happened again to someone Esther

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asked him to look into, well, better not even think about it. Esther simply couldn’t take

that chance.

Once again Esther couldn’t sleep and took to pacing the house at night in frustration.

Once in a while she didn’t see Consuelo at all because she got up so late in the day. She

would find her lunch prepared and waiting for her, the house clean, phone messages

dutifully written and left on the dining room table.

Three weeks after Esther’s talk with Santiago, the April weather began to lighten the

skies and the wildflowers were beginning to turn the countryside into splashes of color

under a still-gentle sun. Esther had managed to sleep a few hours, and she rose before

noon, went to the dining room, and flung open the doors to the veranda. The gauzy

curtains billowed with a spring breeze as sunlight caressed the veranda. Esther noticed

that the cushions on the wicker furniture had been cleaned, a sure sign of the changing

season. She wondered where Consuelo was.

Esther went into the kitchen, but there was no sign of the woman. There was no

evidence, in fact, that she had even been there that day.

Concerned, she picked up the telephone and dialed Consuelo’s home. She hoped

Santiago was at work since she didn’t want to speak to him.

An unknown man answered in Spanish. Esther asked to talk to Consuelo, but she was

told that María and Consuelo were unavailable, they were at a funeral and would be home

later in the day for the funeral gathering at the house.

Esther was too surprised to comment, but the man on the other end of the line was quite

disposed to give out all the information he had. He said the women were attending the

burial of their nephew and cousin, Santiago, who had died the day before as a result of an

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accident while cleaning a gun. Santiago had been badly depressed, and the family felt he

had a terrible disease that he was concealing from them, but they were sure the shooting

was accidental, not suicide.

As Esther rang off, she realized that the family was already creating a mythical narrative

to save itself from the horror of suicide, to explain away his misery, to spare themselves

the guilt and anger such a death would have produced, and to save Santiago from the

after-life consequences of having taken his own life. If they could manage to convince

the world Santiago’s death was an accident, they might be able to believe it themselves.

The momentary shock of the news soon gave way to a small wave of relief—the witness

was dead!—but this in turn quickly became a black tide of doubt. Would Esther now be

held responsible for another death? She was sure that Hiller knew, just as she did,

exactly what had happened. All it would take to revise the notion of an accidental death

was the knowledge that Santiago had been her partner in murder. Hiller would make sure

that Santiago’s moral conflict and suffering, and his death, were laid at her doorstep.

Esther returned to her room to get dressed. It was force of habit, since she had

nowhere to go and nothing to do. She looked at herself in the mirror. She could see the

ravages of sleepless nights in the dark circles under her eyes. She seemed to be paler,

even more colorless than her usual state, so she applied make-up. She noticed that her

hair looked dull, but perhaps it was the light.

Who wouldn’t I look this way, she thought bitterly. I have no useful skills when it

comes to facing life on these terms.

Well, then, damn it, she told herself, you’ll just have to develop some.

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Two days later, a tearful Consuelo turned up to work. Esther expressed her condolences

and fled. The less she knew about the details of Santiago’s death, the better. It was

unfortunate, but Esther couldn’t afford to think about that now.

She had concluded that she was going to have to find out something about Hiller, and

she sat down at her desk to write a letter to Father James. She pulled out his most recent

note—months old—from the middle desk drawer and addressed an envelope. She took a

sheet of her personalized stationary and began to write:

“Dear Father James,

I’m sorry I haven’t written sooner. It was good to hear that you are well and happy in

your parish, and I wish I could say the same about your replacement, Father Hiller. As

you know, María and Consuelo attend his church when they don’t cross the border to go

to Mass in Ciudad Meseta, and it seems like the poor man is a puny replacement for you!

As for me, I’m afraid my one contact with him was enough to make me certain I don’t

want to work with him. He isn’t interested in going to the outlying areas to make sure his

parishioners are all right, he hasn’t made any improvements in the church or the parish

house, and he seems—forgive my frankness, Father James, but you are the only one I

would ever say this to—interested only in money, and I don’t mean money for parish

needs. It is a mystery to me what he is doing here. You can imagine that after having a

priest who was enthusiastic, active, and generous with his time, your sad parish has fallen

on bad times with Father Hiller, whose only concern seems to be arranging to do as little

as possible.

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Yes, I know, I am being a terrible gossip, but I have the advantage of being one of the

unredeemed!

As for me, things are going well. I funded my project for school scholarships and

spend time selecting the candidates, and I continue to donate money to the cause of art in

San Antonio. Other than that, my time is my own, but I always manage to fill it.

Don’t forget all your friends and grateful parishioners in Cormorant Hill. We all think

of you fondly.

Your friend,

Esther”

She slipped the note into envelope, licked the flap and closed it, then stuck a stamp in

the corner.

Esther went to the kitchen to tell Consuelo she was going into town and asked her if she

needed anything. Consuelo said they were getting low on coffee, so Esther promised to

stop by the local grocery store to pick some up.

Esther drove into town and parked her car on Town Square. She went into the town hall

to the post office and slipped the envelope into the airmail slot, stopping long enough to

buy more stamps.

She crossed the street to the grocery store and bought a can of coffee. As she climbed

into her car, she saw in the rearview mirror that Hiller was coming down the sidewalk,

apparently on his way to the grocery store too, and she was relieved she hadn’t coincided

with the man. She watched as he entered the store. It occurred to her that she could use

some information on his usual routines—she was fairly sure that a man as lazy as Hiller

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was more or less predictable, unlike Father James, who was a tornado of activity and

could change plans in a flash to suit the needs of the moment.

She waited more than half an hour. Finally Hiller left the store with a couple of bags of

groceries. He walked to his car to put the bags in the trunk, and Esther noticed that his

car was now a later model than the nondescript jalopy he was driving last time she saw

him. Of course, she thought bitterly, he had money for a down payment on a good used

car this month.

Hiller then made his way to the barber shop, and Esther saw him through the plate glass

window. He settled into a barber chair with the satisfied smile of someone who was in

for the full treatment—shave, facial, haircut, he probably even had his nails manicured.

He might be lazy, but he liked to look good while he did nothing. Even his clothes

seemed better than what he wore when he went to Esther’s house.

A sudden, unexpected vision of John, preening in front of the mirror, looking like a

million dollars no matter what he wore, twisted in Esther’s stomach like a knife. It made

the sight of Hiller odious beyond her ability to digest.

Esther started the car and drove to Our Lady of Sorrow. It sat apart from other buildings

in a neighborhood that had only a few houses, several of them now empty, on the edge of

town. She decided to park right in front of the church. There was no point in trying to

conceal the car by parking on another block. Esther felt the best tactic was to be as open

as possible, as if she had stopped by to see the priest.

Esther went to the front door of the parish house and opened it. No one in Cormorant

Hill locked doors, but she was surprised that Hiller left his door unguarded. It seemed

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out of character, and it made Esther nervous. Her heart was pounding in her chest as she

closed the door behind her and went into the living room.

The house was modestly furnished with things she and Father James had gathered from

all over: donations, flea markets, used furniture stores. Esther had supplied towels,

sheets, bedspread, the basic linens for the dining room, and had ordered the living room

furniture refurbished in pleasant earth tones. She had added some color with throw

pillows and rugs, tasteful drapes, and a few decorative odds and ends. Nothing seemed to

have been changed, but unlike the immaculate cleanliness imposed by Father James, dust

bunnies hid out under the furniture and the drapes seemed dirty.

Esther peeked into the small kitchen. A few dirty dishes lay in the sink. A carton of

milk had been left out, either empty or forgotten. A bottle of dishwashing liquid sat by

the sink, alongside a worn sponge, and a dirty dishtowel hung over the bar on the oven

door. The only item that seemed used with any regularity was the coffee pot. A can of

coffee sat beside it

Next Esther looked into the bedroom. There was a slight smell, not easily identified, but

unpleasant. The bed was made but a pile of what looked like dirty clothes lay in front of

the opened closet door. A huge television set that looked new sat where it could be seen

from the bed.

She went to the nightstand. Only a lamp and a bottle of aspirin could be seen.

In the bathroom, the tub and toilet were not exactly dirty but not clean either. Esther

opened the medicine cabinet over the sink. The mirror on the cabinet was spotted with

what might have been toothpaste. Inside, she was surprised to find numerous bottles of

prescription drugs. She picked them up one at a time and looked at the labels. She was

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not familiar with any of them until she came to one that contained nitroglycerine. She

knew it was for angina.

No wonder Hiller seemed winded the day he came to the house. He had heart trouble.

For a fleeting, mad moment Esther contemplated replacing his pills with something that

looked the same but had no physical effect. That way, next time Hiller reached for the

bottle to relieve his angina, he would get no relief and with any luck would drop dead on

the spot. Esther found the idea so tempting that in spite of its impracticality—how was

she going to do the replacing, for one thing?—she took one of the pills and slipped it into

a pocket.

She looked out the screened back door. The garden, James’ pride and joy, was a tangle

of weeds, abandoned for years.

Esther left the house and went to the parish office. She felt slightly ill. There was

something obscene about Hiller living in the house where James had been so clean, so

careful and so respectful of the few belongings there. James, who felt like he was living

like a king just to have a decent parish house and the extraordinary luxury of a fireplace.

James had used the house to renew himself—reading, working in the garden, planning his

sermons or the weeks’ activities. Hiller had more possessions but left the house feeling

tarnished and forgotten. Where Father James could fill an empty room with his energy

and happiness, Hiller dragged a void around with him that stole every space he tried to

occupy.

Again Esther was surprised, this time to find the office locked. It was here, then, that

Hiller kept things that compromised him and others. This was where the tapes would be,

if there were any.

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Esther wondered if she still had the key to the door, one she used often when taking

delivery of the things she and James would later deliver to parishioners. She couldn’t

remember when she had last seen it, and she certainly didn’t think she had transferred it

to the purse she carried with her.

It was as she was digging in the depths of the purse, standing in front of the office, that

Hiller drove up.

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29.

“Well, Mrs. Bainbridge, this is a pleasant surprise!” crowed Hiller. He removed the

paper bags of groceries from the trunk. “If you’ll just let me put these things away, I’ll

be with you in a second.”

Esther made no reply as Hiller carried his purchases toward the house, opened the door,

and closed it behind him. He must have set the bags on the counter without putting

anything in the refrigerator, because true to his word, he was back out the door and

heading toward her in under a minute. He fished around in a pocket and retrieved a key.

“Let’s step into the office,” he said, unlocking the door. “To what do I owe this

pleasure?”

Esther noticed once more that he was a bit winded, no doubt because he had really

rushed once inside the house. Her presence there at the office had surely put him on

guard. It occurred to Esther that in spite of his smarmy style, he might be nervous.

Esther had no choice at all at this point. Only one thing could have brought her to visit

Hiller. She pulled out her checkbook as she took the chair Hiller scooted up to the desk.

Still without addressing the man, she made out a check and handed it over. This time,

as Hiller swept some papers off the desk top into a drawer and got up to fool with the

standing fan in an attempt to turn it on low, Esther paid close attention to what was in the

room. She was sure that anything Hiller kept concealed was in the desk, which had two

large locked drawers, one on each side, and Esther had no key. Without damaging the

wood itself, she couldn’t imagine how she might get into the drawers.

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Other than the desk, there was nothing of interest in the room. The small bookcase held

only a few books left by Father James and a number of school notebooks, evidently

brought by Hiller, but the bookcase itself was little more than a collection of shelves.

Whatever was incriminating had to be in the desk itself.

Wordlessly Esther left. She hoped that her complete silence would make Hiller think

she was being cautious in case he was trying to tape her. If she acted paranoid enough,

with luck he wouldn’t think she had done her own spying. She hoped he underestimated

her as John had done for so long.

As Esther drove off, she decided to head back to town and visit the drugstore. It was

small and carried only the basics, but she might find something similar to the tiny pill she

carried in her pocket. It would have to be an over-the-counter item. She didn’t dare ask

the druggist for help.

Once in the drugstore, she was grateful to find three other customers there. While one

of them argued with the druggist about a refill for a prescription and the other two

wandered around the aisles searching for items, Esther looked over the analgesics, the

antihistamines, and even laxatives. She fingered the pill in her pocket, checking its

surface. She brought it out quickly and looked at it, sniffed it, and briefly tasted it. It

was sharp, oddly sweet and aromatic, but stinging. She knew it was administered

sublingually, and the taste might be very different there. She was afraid to put it under

her tongue because she didn’t know what it would do to someone who didn’t need it.

She picked up a package of cold tablets and pretended to read the label as she scraped at

the pill with a fingernail and placed the minute amount under her tongue. It was bitter.

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She could find nothing as small as the pill. She replaced the cold tablets and left the

drugstore. As she drove home, wondering how to find replacements for the nitro pills,

she finally gave up. This is something you could do in a snap in a movie, she thought,

but real life just doesn’t work out that way. Maybe I should go to a drugstore in San

Antonio, at least no one knows me there. Surely I could invent some story, come up with

some song and dance. Or maybe I should just stop fooling myself.

At home, Consuelo had already left, and Esther went to the kitchen to make a

sandwich. She got out the pill and placed it on a saucer, then set the saucer on the

countertop. I can’t even soak them in some kind of poison, she thought, the pills would

disintegrate.

Disgusted, she turned on the water at the sink and tossed the pill down the drain. It’s

pointless, she thought, this is all a tall tale. I’m beginning to go off the deep end. At least

I know he has heart trouble, and maybe I can use that to my advantage.

Yeah, she thought with bitter humor, I could challenge him to a footrace and offer to

double the blackmail money if he wins.

She snorted with laughter that built until she sat helplessly on her stool at the kitchen

counter, tears streaming down her face.

Esther was surprised ten days later to find a letter from Father James waiting for her on

the dining room table when she got up. She had forgotten she had written him. Unlike

his usual messages, the envelope felt like it had two or three pages in it. Esther tore it

open.

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The letter was chatty and upbeat. James was doing well. His health was fine. He was

thrilled to hear from Esther. Then came the interesting part.

James told her that Hiller had been sent to Cormorant Hill as a disciplinary measure. He

didn’t go into detail, but he did say that Hiller had been involved in a commercial

enterprise at his last church which had reflected badly on his vocation as priest.

Esther was astounded. A commercial enterprise? Is that how the church interpreted

blackmail using information gotten in confession? If so, it was obvious there would be

no help from this source.

As she read on about the activities of James and his wishes for her health and happiness,

she found it impossible to believe that Hiller had been caught in his extortion racket.

How was is possible James could mention it in passing and blithely continue on in his

letter about trivial matters? No, something was wrong, and she was going to have to

clear it up.

Seated in the study, Esther began another letter to James.

“Dear Father James,

Thank you so much for you letter. It’s wonderful to know you are happy and fulfilled

in your work.

I’m sorry to touch on this subject again, but there are certain rumors going around

about Father Hiller. As you know, I’m not fond of rumor-mongering, but since you

mentioned some kind of commercial enterprise in you letter, it looks like he might be up

to it again. I don’t really know, but if you could find it possible to tell me what he was

doing that got him disciplined, it would help. There’s always the chance this is nothing

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more than gossip by people who want to hurt him or who resent him—you know what

small towns are like—and it would be terrible if he got into trouble when he’s trying to

mend his ways.

Your friend.

Esther”

Esther didn’t want James initiating some kind of investigation into Hiller’s doings, so

she tried to downplay the seriousness of the fictitious rumors. It wouldn’t do to get Hiller

into trouble and have him spill the proverbial beans.

This time she put the letter in the mailbox and raised the flag. There was no rush. All

she could do was wait until something, anything, came up that put Hiller’s fate in her

hands, and not the other way around.

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30.

Esther’s relief was acute when a letter from James revealed Hiller’s car repair scam.

Esther was aware that James, relying on her loyalty and his own deep feelings of

friendship, had stepped far past the acceptable boundaries by telling her why Hiller was

disciplined. She hurried to write back, reassuring James that in the meantime she had

found out the rumors about Hiller were unfounded, but she didn’t specify what the

rumors were. She wanted to lie to James as little as possible. She had already betrayed

the friendship beyond redemption, but some part of her clung to its tattered and faded

remains, part of a dead past she had killed but couldn’t bring herself to bury completely.

The summer came and brought the din of cicadas, the sound of frogs after a rain, a riot

of star jasmine winding around the veranda.

It also brought the humiliating monthly ceremony of paying Hiller.

Esther didn’t visit the parish office again. Slowly, with a certain method she worked

out by playing with her ideas in the journal, Esther began to test the limits of Hiller’s

responses. First she asked him to park his car on the street and not in the driveway.

When he asked why, she said it would look improper to have a man in the house with her

alone, but if he parked on the street it would at least seem completely above board. She

hoped he would accept this lame excuse and chalk it up to her social rigidity.

She was mistaken. Hiller looked at her sharply and replied that his cassock and priest’s

collar were all she needed in the way of propriety. Esther didn’t think Hiller suspected

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she wanted to make him exert himself physically, but she couldn’t be sure. She realized

she had to be very careful not to arouse his suspicions.

She gave in, saying he was probably right. If he didn’t swallow it, he didn’t swallow it.

Then she hit on the idea of turning the apartment over the garage into an office. That

involved stairs. She and Consuelo rearranged the furniture, and Esther had the bed and

dresser removed to the garage. She bought a small but adequate desk, had an extension

phone installed, and put up two bookcases which she partially filled with her own books.

She had finished the office by the middle of July. She met Hiller there near the end of

the month.

Esther phoned him from Yancey’s study (how long since she had thought of it as his!)

to say he was to drive up near the garage, and she would meet him in the office. She

worked there now, she said, she preferred the privacy afforded by being out of the house,

and he would probably see she was right.

“Just park in front of the garage and come up the stairs,” she said.

“Stairs?” Hiller asked, a tiny note of tension entering his voice.

“Yes,” said Esther, “they’re wooden stairs but very sturdy. Come on up. I’ll be

waiting.” She rang off before he could argue. She wondered if he thought she had done

something to the stairs to make them collapse on him.

This is beginning to be a quiet cat-and-mouse game, thought Esther, and it isn’t clear

who’s the cat or who’s the mouse.

Esther had left the new office open, with only a lazy ceiling fan on to relieve the Texas

summer heat. She didn’t know if overheating would add a burden to Hiller’s heart, but

she was willing to try anything.

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Esther went to what used to be her bedroom with John. She wanted to watch Hiller

make his way up the stairs and she had a perfect view from there. She would go to the

office once he had gotten inside, but she needed to see how much of a strain the stairs

really were.

She almost never entered this part of the house. Everything was as she had left it. It

smelled, ever so faintly, of John’s aftershave lotion. It had to be her imagination, she

thought, as her heart thudded painfully. She opened the closet door. All of John’s

clothes and shoes were still there. Esther tried to catch her breath. She went into the

bathroom and saw that Consuelo must have broken a bottle of aftershave while cleaning.

There were a few remains of glass in the trashcan. The smell was still faint but a little

stronger than in the bedroom.

She stepped out of the bathroom and closed the door. How old would John’s child be

now? Where did the mother live? It seemed as if her life had suddenly been reduced to a

series of nitpicking details, devoid of meaning or emotion, pointless thoughts and acts, a

kind of hangover filled with the dull ache of having once lived, but no more.

The feeling was so powerful that Esther had to sit down on the end of the bed.

Nothing that came after John had mattered, not even her frightened attempts to preserve

her freedom.

Esther saw that it had been a terrible mistake coming to the bedroom, seeing John’s

clothes, detecting the detritus of his presence.

She was so appalled at the depth of her sudden misery that she missed hearing Hiller

drive up to the garage, but the slam of a car door brought her back to the present. She

went to the window and glanced through the curtains.

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Hiller extracted a handkerchief from a pocket and mopped his face. The Texas

afternoon was stifling. He looked at the stairs and up toward the office door. He

hesitated, then mounted a few of the steps.

About halfway up, he stopped to rest. He glanced upward, then climbed the last steps.

Esther saw that at the top, before opening the door, he took something from a pocket,

something she couldn’t see in his hand. He opened his mouth and put something in it.

The pill, Esther thought. He’s feeling the climb.

She dashed to the front of the house and went out the door, walking around the side of

the house and toward the garage. Hiller was gone, evidently inside now. She hurried up

the stairs and entered the office. Hiller was seated in a chintz-covered chair in front of

the desk, a dark look on his face.

“Can’t you get that damned ceiling fan to put out more air than that?”

Esther feigned surprise.

“Sure, hang on.” She pulled the chain that controlled the fan speed and took note of the

fact that Hiller had been too tired to do it himself. He must have absolutely collapsed in

that chair, she thought gleefully, he must be in really bad shape.

“You don’t look good,” she observed coldly.

“It’s the goddamned Texas heat,” he replied angrily, as if Esther were responsible for it.

Esther decided to take a small chance.

“If the stairs are too much for you, I guess I can see you in the old office, but all my

stuff is in here now. Including checkbooks,” she added dryly.

She had gambled well. Hiller didn’t want to seem weak or in ill health, it would put

him at a disadvantage.

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“I’m fine with the stairs, like I keep telling you, but you don’t seem to get it, it’s the

blasted heat. Why haven’t you air conditioned this place, for God’s sake?” He looked

around with a petulant expression, as if lack of air conditioning were a major social faux

pas only indulged in by rednecks.

“Maybe because I’ve lived here all my life and the heat doesn’t get to me so much,”

Esther replied lightly. “If you want air conditioning, you can give me a discount on your

blackmail payment and I’ll spend it on that.”

If she had hoped to irk Hiller, it didn’t work. He was on familiar terrain now, and he

was beyond being insulted. Take note, she told herself, this particular ploy isn’t going to

get him agitated.

Hiller smiled indulgently.

“Why don’t we just get our business over with so I can get out of here,” Hiller stated

calmly.

Esther made time by opening and closing desk drawers and looking over her checkbook

slowly. Hiller’s face was bathed in sweat and his color was grayish. He pulled out the

handkerchief again and wiped his forehead.

It won’t take much to push him over the edge, she thought, I’ll just have to use trial and

error to find out what works best.

Esther handed over the check and sat back, relaxed, while Hiller pushed himself up from

the chair and headed toward the door. He opened the screen and let it slam, then he

heavily descended the stairs. Esther went to stand at the door as he clambered into his car

and started it up. The sheen of sweat was back on his face. He rolled up the car window

and leaned over to turn on the air conditioning.

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As he drove off, Esther knew she had found her weapon: Hiller’s blackguard heart. The

irony made her smile.

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31.

Ed Hiller drove back to the parish house in a state of euphoria. It was the usual result

of receiving a check for a thousand dollars.

He knew he was in trouble. He had had to take a pill to relieve his struggling heart at

the top of those damned stairs, and he was covered in a sweat provoked by more than the

ungodly heat.

Ed drove up to the house and parked his car. He would go to the bank tomorrow.

Right now he had to get some rest or he might drop dead before he had a chance to enjoy

his new-found prosperity.

In spite of the heat, he first checked the door to the office to make sure it was locked.

He was getting obsessive about it, he recognized that. But with Santiago dead, his only

evidence against the Bainbridge woman were the tapes he had carefully stored in a locked

drawer of the desk. He had his notebooks and all the details of the confession written

there, but that wasn’t as damning as the recordings. He had taken the precaution of

transcribing the tapes into a notebook and making a set of copies of the recordings. After

all, this was the biggest score he had ever made.

Ed had been badly shocked to drive up from his routine trip to the store and barber

shop to find the Bainbridge woman’s car parked on the sidewalk and the woman herself

standing in front of the office. The first thing that ran through his mind was to wonder

whether she had a key to the office or not. It had never occurred to him before, but the

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notion made the hair on the nape of his neck stand on end. Considering how much work

she had done for Father James, she could well have an extra key.

Ed had changed the lock the very next day.

Esther’s refusal to say a single word inside the office meant that she suspected for sure.

Ed had to laugh. After his first attempt to catch her confessing to her husband’s murder,

he had stopped trying. It was too much work and it was pointless anyway. She was

forking over the money faithfully each month, and that’s all Ed wanted.

It made Ed absolutely gleeful to think about how he had been sent to the little church as

a disciplinary measure. He had done his time quietly at the seminary in San Antonio,

carrying out humiliatingly insignificant tasks and meaningless make-work, supposedly to

teach him service and humility. It had been a long time, but just being in San Antonio

was reward enough. Church authorities had relented a bit when Ed’s heart condition was

diagnosed, and he knew this would be his last church. They would leave him here until

he died.

His arrival in Cormorant Hill had seemed like the advent to Hell. It had taken him

about five minutes to discover that his predecessor was a local hero to the little

congregation, and in fact to others who weren’t even Catholic. The almost tangible

disappointment of everyone, once they got to know Ed, made him furious. It occurred to

him that the effort of having to hide his rage constantly, everywhere he went, might have

damaged his heart. His theory was unorthodox, his doctor had talked about family

history and nutrition and other nonsense, but Ed alone knew what it cost him to pretend.

At first he had been excited by the prospect of having a wealthy sponsor in the form of

the Bainbridge woman. He was bound to be able to skim off some of the money she

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donated to the church and use it for his own needs. Anything to relieve the nightmare of

this uncouth backwash of a town.

If his first meeting with her over the phone had gone badly, the second one at her

house had been an unmitigated disaster. Ed could only come to the conclusion that the

woman was in love with Father James and her charitable activities had nothing at all to

do with religion. Her fury at his intimation that such was the case confirmed his

diagnosis.

By the time the local gossip had put him up to date on the history and finances of the

Hutton family—and in that sense, the barber shop was a gold mine, if only Ed could

strike it rich—Ed also had a pretty good picture of the state of Esther’s marriage. He

noticed that people were a little cautious about gossip concerning Esther and John, but he

heard in hushed tones about John’s womanizing, the women he kept across the river, his

gambling.

Then all that stopped, and John had been seen with just one woman, an Indian from

New Mexico. Rumors began that John was going to leave Esther, or that maybe she was

going to kick him out and leave him penniless. Town feeling ran with Esther. She was

respected and in some quarters admired. More than one woman said she would gladly

trade places with her just to have occupied the same bed as John, but as someone had

said, John wasn’t a “keeper”. His kind always moved on.

That may have been true, thought Ed, but his sole meeting with John in the Bainbridge

woman’s study had made Ed acutely uncomfortable. Only one of John’s glances had

made Ed feel ugly, insignificant, a poor specimen of manhood, and totally transparent.

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To his disgust, Ed discovered that Esther too was worshipped by his congregation. The

gossip about her marriage didn’t affect her status one whit. If anything, it improved it.

The information had all been interesting but useless as far as Ed was concerned. His

depression increased when he realized there was not a soul in his congregation with

anything to confess that amounted to a hill of beans, and even if there had been, no one

had enough money to pay for him to keep quiet.

And then, like a bolt from the blue, Santiago had showed up in the confessional. Ed

had seen Santiago a few times at Mass, and he looked like a soul in the last circle of the

Inferno.

It had taken all of Ed’s skills and a lot of time to relieve Santiago of his burden of guilt

while taping the sessions in the confessional. Ed had had to make an emergency run to

San Antonio to get the tape recorder and spent most of one night reading the instructions

and making sure he knew how to edit. All he could do was erase his portion of the

conversation, and it had been touch and go as he learned how to use the numbering

system on the recorder.

Oh, but it had been worth it!

Ed smiled happily as he entered his house. He made a pot of coffee in the kitchen—

coffee didn’t do his heart any good, but what the heck, a man has to have some pleasure

in life—and put Esther’s check away in the nightstand. He would be at the bank bright

and early to cash it. He hadn’t dared open a checking account because it would look like

he was using Esther’s “charity” money for himself. At least it would seem that way if

anyone noticed, and there was one thing you could count on in Cormorant Hill: someone

would notice, and someone would talk.

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It had taken Ed forever to figure out where to stash his money. Stash the cash, he

thought, giggling. Finally he decided to keep it in the freezer. He wasn’t sure what

television program he had seen that suggested the idea to him. He had no fear of

thievery, and like most people in Cormorant Hill, his front door was open. It was the

mere existence of the money he wanted kept quiet. He did regret that he couldn’t put it

into some kind of account that paid him interest, no matter how small.

It was a serious blow to his sense of security when Santiago had died in that gun

accident. Ed had not seen Santiago for a while before the death, but he was sure that

Santiago’s ideas of suicide had been nipped in the bud by Ed’s careful coaching. Ed had

been worried about the Bainbridge woman’s reaction to finding out that Ed’s only

witness against her was out of the picture forever. Ed had not wanted to confirm her

suspicions that he had tape recordings, but it looked like his veiled threats had been

enough to keep the woman in line. She must be in a real fright, Ed thought, if she wanted

to get her office out of the house. Did she think her hired help was listening at the door?

It’s a good sign, Ed thought. I’ve got her right where I want her, and in a few more

weeks I’m going to up the ante. Two thousand a month sounds good.

Hell’s bells, he thought, maybe I can even construe Santiago’s accident as suicide and

make this bitch think she drove him to it.

He laughed out loud and headed for the living room to collapse on the couch and watch

some television.

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32.

Esther bided her time and didn’t make any incursions onto the field of battle until the

end of September. She had been handing over her check without comment, but this time

she decided it was time to find out what got under Hiller’s skin. Cold weather was on its

way, and Esther felt that a good cold snap and enough emotional leverage just might

make Hiller drop dead.

Going through the books in Yancey’s study, Esther had come across a family medical

book she had remembered seeing several years ago. There was not a great deal on

angina, but it did say that angina patients should avoid extremes of temperatures,

especially cold. She also read that attacks typically presented early in the morning or late

in the day.

Esther had worked out a plan from the scant medical information. If she could find out

what set Hiller off, and if she could manage to see him early on a very cold morning, she

might be able to provoke an angina attack. He would have his medication with him, but

he wouldn’t be in any shape to fight her for it if she snatched it out of his hand. The idea

sounded far-fetched to Esther, but she didn’t seem to have any other option, at least for

the moment. If the plan failed, she would have to do something more direct.

The day was cool when Hiller trudged up the steps to Esther’s office. She knew it was a

matter of time before he demanded to see her somewhere else, but Hiller’s reluctance to

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reveal his weakness—and thus his vulnerability—so far had kept him struggling up the

stairs once a month. Esther’s main ally was his greed.

The office was cozy and warm, thanks to the space heater. Hiller sat down—gone were

the courteous greetings and “dear lady” and other pretenses. For Hiller it was a relief to

get this relationship down to its essentials. It saved him the effort of being charming.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” asked Esther as she observed him closely. “You look a

little gray around the gills.”

“Don’t you wish. Sorry, Mrs. Bainbridge, I happen to be just fine. Rumors of my

death have been greatly exaggerated,” he answered, laughing.

Esther had set up a coffee pot and had four mugs in the office. She didn’t offer coffee

to Hiller, but then wondered if the caffeine might be bad for his heart, and changed her

mind.

“Coffee?” she asked.

“Yes, I think so.”

“There’s the pot, the coffee’s fresh, you can fix your own, I’m sure,” was Esther’s

ungracious reply.

While Hiller poured his coffee and added milk and sugar, Esther attacked.

“Got a letter from Father James yesterday,” she remarked. “I didn’t realize you had

been sent here to be disciplined. I don’t know much about Catholicism, but I can imagine

your little car repair business must not have gone over big with your bosses. You know,

priestly humility and decorous poverty and all that.”

By Hiller’s expression, Esther realized she had hit pay dirt. It darkened ominously.

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“Your precious Father James had better watch himself, he broke all kinds of moral

precepts by telling you things you have no right to know about.”

“You could always write to him and find out how much he’ll pay to keep you from

revealing his moral missteps,” Esther said lightly, with a small laugh.

Hiller’s face became flushed and he set his coffee mug down. He tried to hide his

difficulty breathing, but Esther knew what to look for now.

“If you’ll hand over my check, I have things to do.”

“Sure, if you don’t want to chew the fat, that’s fine with me. And just when it was

getting interesting, too!”

Hiller snatched the check from Esther’s hand, and it tore.

“Now look what you’ve done. You might as well finish your coffee, I’m going to have

to write another check.”

“Speaking of checks,” said Hiller, sitting down and trying to regain control over his

breathing, “I think we should reconsider our deal.”

Esther stopped writing.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I’ve had some extra expenses, and we should think about increasing my income,

as it were.”

“Oh?” asked Esther calmly.

Hiller was not expecting Esther’s reaction. He thought she would become enraged.

“Yes, I think two thousand a month would just about do it.”

Esther smiled.

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“You do, do you?” She laughed and continued to write. She carefully tore the check

from the checkbook, replaced the checkbook in the middle desk drawer, and handed the

document to Hiller. He saw that it was for the usual amount.

This presented Hiller with a problem. He didn’t know what Esther had up her sleeve,

but he didn’t like her attitude. What was there to smile about, he thought, what is it I

don’t know? He decided that tactically it would be better to make a planned retreat:

“Thank you. Think my offer over until October. I’m sure we can come to a reasonable

arrangement.”

“I’m sure we can,” replied Esther, still upbeat. She knew her demeanor confused

Hiller, and that was fine. Let him wonder for a while if she was going to cough up the

money or not.

After Hiller left, Esther sat back with satisfaction and finished her coffee. There was at

least one area that touched Hiller on the raw, and that topic was why he had been sent to

Cormorant Hill. It was peculiar how it didn’t bother him at all to show himself as a

blackmailer, but it shamed him for someone else to know about his first painful attempts

to make money and how he was caught at it.

Esther suspected strongly that there was another area even more painful, and she was

going to save it until she next faced him.

The end of October brought Halloween pumpkins and harvest themes to store fronts

and the Town Hall, where a sheaf of corn stalks, huge orange pumpkins, and a scarecrow

adorned the dry grass in front of the main entrance. Esther heard on the radio that a cold

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spell was predicted for the first days of November, below freezing, the introductory cold

snap to what was being touted as a hard winter this year.

Esther phoned Hiller and told him she was ill, that she would get in touch as soon as she

had recovered and give him an answer about a “reasonable arrangement”, as he termed it.

Esther knew anyone with heart trouble avoided catching colds and flu, so she was not

surprised when Hiller happily accepted an appointment at some other time. She thought

Hiller was probably chortling over her missed chance to get him sick and headed toward

the graveyard. The idea made her giggle. If only you knew, she thought, if only you

knew.

It was not until the third of November that the weather got extremely cold in the

afternoon. The sky was a lowering mass of heavy gray clouds, unbroken, promising a

freezing night and a worse morning.

Esther decided not to phone Hiller because she didn’t want him to be prepared for her

arrival. She would just show up early next morning, demand to see him, refuse to enter

the house, and force him to meet with her outdoors.

She was nervous. If this didn’t work, she had no idea what she would do.

Esther lit a fire in the living room fireplace as the afternoon turned to night. She carried

all her purses to the living room and sat on the rug in front of the fire as she searched

each one for a key that might open the parish office door. At the bottom of a summer

purse she found a loose key with a small square of masking tape on the widest part. The

tiny letters “p.o.” were printed on the tape. She set aside the key and took the purses

back to her closet and stored them.

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She brought a woolen blanket to the couch and made herself a cup of hot cocoa. Then

she brought the leather journal from Yancey’s study and, one by one, tore out the pages

she had written and fed them to the fire. She wanted nothing left in the house that

recorded her connection with Hiller. Her checks already did that, and it was a problem

for which she could find no solution. She did a minimum of banking in town, and she

could imagine the gossip it would cause if she withdrew a thousand dollars a month in

cash.

There was nothing for it but to declare that the checks were in support of the church if

anyone asked about them. She could always pretend that Hiller had defrauded both her

and the church by keeping part of the money for himself. Given his history, it was more

than feasible. She could pass herself off as a generous but dim-witted victim of Hiller’s

greed.

Esther settled in by the fire with a book, hoping to read herself into sleepiness. She was

wound up, thinking about next morning, and she slept fitfully on the couch, waking each

time the fire crackled or a gust of wind rattled the branches of the live oaks. She had

fragmented dreams. John appeared in some of them, horribly converted into Hiller,

carrying a huge plate of wedding cake and demanding that Esther eat enough to fatten up.

In others, she was turned into a man, trying desperately to stab a shadowy figure, but her

dagger was made of rubber.

She woke up in the early morning blackness. The fire was dead and the house was very

cold. She made her way to the hall and turned on the central heat, hearing the natural gas

kick in and the air with a gentle whoosh begin to flow through the ducts.

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She went to the kitchen, turned on the light, and made a pot of coffee. Her stomach was

in knots of tension, so she decided to have some toast to keep the coffee from turning it to

a cauldron of acid.

Esther felt much better with the coffee and toast inside her. She went to her room and

turned on the gas to the artificial logs. She began to dress.

She put on tights, woolen pants, heavy socks over the tights, laced hiking boots, a

camisole, a woolen long sleeved shirt, her heaviest sweater, and she got out the hooded

sheepskin coat her father had given her two years before he died. She found a long

muffler and lined gloves.

Esther pulled back a curtain and looked past the veranda to the lawn and sky. There was

a moon that once in a great while could be seen through a racing pack of dense clouds. It

meant a clear day once the sun had come up and afternoon settled over the town, but it

also meant the bitterest of cold, a dry cutting freeze that might disappear overnight or stay

around for three or four days. Whatever it did, Esther had to take her chance this

morning.

God, she thought, either this is a brilliant plan, or I’m grasping at some pretty wild

straws.

It was still dark when Esther, near six-thirty, went to the garage. Her breath came out in

puffs of white and the dry grass, now frozen, crackled underfoot. The cold was like a

knife. She slid the garage door up. Esther got into the pick-up once used by Father James

and then Santiago and started it up. She had changed the battery in September, checked

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the tires, put in anti-freeze, and filled the gas tank.. It was a rather poor disguise, but it

was better than driving up to the parish house in her own car.

The exhaust from the muffler looked like smoke as it hit the icy air. She turned on the

heater in the pick-up, but the initial blast of cold air was replaced by a draft so hot she

decided she might get sick if she exposed herself to such extremes. She switched the

heater off.

As Esther drove through town, everything was dark except for Myrna’s café, now run

by her daughter. The café was still closed, but they were getting ready for the breakfast

customers.

The wind during the night had knocked over the scarecrow and corn stalks in front of

Town Hall. A couple of the stalks were lying in the street.

Esther finally neared the church and parish house, sitting in the dark in the empty

neighborhood. As she drove up, she was shocked to see a light on by the side of the

house on an outside wall. She was even more stunned to see that Hiller’s car was sitting

alongside the house, the hood was up, and an absurdly bundled-up Hiller was bent over

the fender doing something to the engine.

Hiller straightened up abruptly at the sound of a car pulling up behind his own, and he

whacked his head against the hood.

“Jesus Christ!” he yelled, rubbing his head.

Esther came around the car to where Hiller stood and laughed aloud.

“No, it’s just me” she giggled. But then she stopped as if cut off by a switch. The last

time she had used this particular witticism, the target had been John.

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“What in God’s name are you doing here?” asked Hiller, angry. “Do you know what

time it is?”

Hiller’s breath formed a cloud around his face that gently faded into the air. He looked

cold and miserable. Good, thought Esther.

“I think a better question is, what are you doing up at this time of the morning? You

aren’t exactly the parish dynamo, you know.”

Inside her gloves, Esther’s hands were like ice. This was going to be harder than she

had imagined.

“Damn it, I have to go to San Antonio this morning, and my car won’t start. What do

you want?” Hiller turned back to the engine and peered under the hood as if he might

locate by sight alone what the problem was.

“I’ve been thinking about your proposition, and I think I’ll decline.” Esther thrust her

hands into the pockets of the sheepskin jacket. “I assume you put anti-freeze in your

engine?”

Once more Hiller straightened up and once more hit his head on the hood.

“God-damn it!” he roared. “This is not the time or place for this conversation, I’m

cold, I have to get this car started, so let’s talk later.”

Esther contemplated his bluish face, the knitted cap pulled low over his ears, the

massive wool coat that went all the way to his ankles. He had one glove on and one off,

probably because he had been moving some part of the engine.

“Hey, Ed, calm down.”

Hiller was stunned. The woman had never addressed him this way. What did it mean?

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“I’ve been thinking. Why should I look down on you just because you’ve had a hard-

scrabble life? You probably should have learned a trade, for God’s sake—and I mean

literally for God’s sake!—but you didn’t, so I guess you have to do what you can to….to

what? Make ends meet?”

Hiller didn’t know what to say. Esther moved closer to him.

“I can’t help but wonder what you want the money for. Say, do you go across the river

very much?”

“Do I what? What’s gotten into you? No, I don’t go across the river.”

“No wonder you’re so ill-tempered!” Esther acted as if she had discovered a great truth

pertaining to Hiller’s life. All Hiller wanted was for her to go away so he could get in the

house and warm up. He was having trouble breathing, he could feel a sharp pain growing

in his chest. Hiller began to be frightened.

“I have to go in,” he managed to say as he moved toward the front of the house, but

Esther blocked his path.

“Need your nitro pills, Ed? Listen, I have a proposal of my own. If you don’t go across

the river, it’s obvious your problem is lack of sex. You may not be the best-looking man

in the world, God knows, but even you could buy sex in Ciudad Meseta. Or do you have

a complex in that area? Had much experience, Ed?”

Hiller began to back away from Esther. His heart slammed against his chest in fear.

The pain made his face go white.

“Anyway, how about this? Instead of paying you that extra thousand dollars, well,

maybe you could take it out in trade,” said Esther as she went up to Hiller and slipped an

arm beneath his coat to grab at his waist. “Don’t you ever need a woman, Ed? Even if

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you have to pay for someone to stand the sight of you? I admit it would be hard for me

after having a man like John, but hey, I might be able to do it if I don’t look at your face.”

Hiller wondered fleetingly how Esther knew so much, how inferior he felt sexually,

how ugly he felt, about his heart trouble, when the pain hit him with enough force to take

him to his knees, gasping. It was so cold, so horribly cold, he thought.

Esther stood quietly and watched as Hiller sank to his knees and then to the ground, his

eyes staring at her in mute appeal. His mouth moved but she could hear nothing.

“What’s that, Ed? I can’t hear you.” Esther bent down and turned her head, hoping to

catch what he was saying.

She could barely make out the hoarse whisper.

“House. Pills. Please.”

“I couldn’t possibly go into your house, Ed. Do you have any idea how improper that

would look?” Esther went to a switch she could see on the wall and flipped it. As she

suspected, it turned off the outside light.

Then she sat down on Hiller’s chest.

“Damn, but it’s cold. This should warm you up, Ed. I’ll just sit here for a while until

you feel better.”

She didn’t know how long she sat, looking up into the sky that was rimmed now with

the first slimmest hint of dawn. When finally she looked down at Hiller, she knew he

was dead. His eyes stared out, but there were no puffs of white breath. She pulled off a

glove and put her fingers to his neck, feeling repulsed at the sensation of his skin against

hers. There was no pulse.

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Esther stood up. She reached into a pocket of her coat with her gloveless hand and

extracted the key. The metal was so cold it hurt her fingers as if they had been burned.

She put her glove back on and headed toward the parish office. She was in a hurry now.

It would not be long before it was light.

She knew she had the wrong key even before she tried it. The lock looked new. Hiller

had replaced the old one.

Esther looked around. There was no one in sight, the whole area was as quiet as the

grave. Your grave, Hiller, she thought.

She hurried back to the pick-up and got the tire iron from the bed of the truck. She

pulled her muffler from around her neck and wrapped the tire iron in it. The noise of the

truck gate, the tire iron on the vehicle’s metal as she pulled it out, it all sounded like

thunder to her. She knew the cold would deaden the noise, but her nerves were on fire as

she broke the window next to the office door and cleared away the glass. She shook out

the muffler to clear away any pieces of the window glass and crammed it into her coat

pocket.

It was hard clambering through the window with so many clothes on, and she heard

something tear. A tiny sliver of glass had torn her pants but hadn’t gotten past the tights.

Without turning on a light, Esther could see well enough by now to guide the end of the

tire iron into one of the locked drawers. She put all her weight on it and heard the

splintering of wood. The drawer slid open.

She did the same with the second drawer. It had nothing in it but old envelopes and

typing paper. It was the first drawer that held the tapes.

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I was right, she exulted. Esther gathered all the tapes up and felt around in the drawer

to make sure she was missing nothing. She glanced around the office a last time before

turning the bolt on the door and opening it.

Esther climbed into the pick-up and started it. She looked once at the bulk on the

ground by Hiller’s car. She could see the soles of his shoes pointing at her. The mound no

longer seemed human. She backed out of the drive and headed home.

She turned on the heater. She was too cold. She needed to get to her house, hop into

bed, and warm up.

Esther parked the pick-up back in the garage, slid the door down, and ran to the house.

The warmth of the house washed over her as she went inside and took off her coat. She

hung it in a hall closet and trotted to the living room, chilled to the bone still.

She took the little tapes and unwound each one. She gathered the slim ribbons of brown

plastic into a tangled ball and placed it in the living room fireplace. The ball went up in a

blaze when she set a match to it. She dumped the tape cases into the trash can in the

kitchen. She noticed they were unlabeled.

She went tiredly to her room and changed into pajamas. She got under the down

comforter. She must have fallen asleep, because when she woke up the sun was shining,

the clouds had been blown away, and Consuelo could be heard cleaning the house.

Esther lazily looked from her bed at the frost-covered view outside the French doors,

and then she went back to sleep.

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33.

At noon Esther got up and headed toward the dining room. Consuelo was making

something that smelled wonderful, and Esther realized she was starving.

Esther peeked into the kitchen. Consuelo looked happy to see her.

“Miss Esther! I’m making pozole today, the weather is so cold, it will warm you up!”

Pozole was a magnificent Mexican soup with pork, chicken, chiles, tomatoes, a myriad

of spices, and a kind of hominy. It was indeed a cold-weather dish.

As Consuelo set Esther’s steaming bowl before her at the dining room table, arranged

the lettuce, onion, radishes and toasted comino that complemented the soup and gave it

even more body, she was full of the morning’s news. It seemed that Father Hiller had

dropped dead of a heart attack and was found outside by his car. The car’s hood had

been open. Someone had also broken into the parish office. It wasn’t known if Father

Hiller was trying to go for help but couldn’t start the car—unlikely, all he had to do was

call the sheriff’s office—or if the thief himself was trying to steal the car and was

surprised by Father Hiller in the act of trying to start the motor. This was the scenario

favored by the sheriff. There was nothing of value in the little office, and the thief, in

frustration, probably tried to make off with the only thing of value at hand—Hiller’s

automobile. Unfortunately for both the thief and Hiller, the car wouldn’t start, and it was

probably this that had doomed Hiller. He had time to wake up and realize what was

happening. Foolish of him to confront the thief, was the consensus of the authorities. He

should have used the telephone and kept himself safe.

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There was no evidence of violence on the priest’s body, and the thief had gotten clean

away.

“How in the world did you find all this out?” asked Esther, always amazed at the way

news went around a small town like an out-of-control brush fire.

“Oh, I have a nephew at the sheriff’s department, he’s one of the new deputies”

“Consuelo, you amaze me. Your relatives keep you better informed than the local

newspaper!”

Consuelo laughed, then looked contrite.

“I’m sorry I said bad things about Father Hiller, I didn’t really like him even if he did

help poor Santiago. He seemed like a dishonest person to me. God forgive me,” she

ended as she crossed herself, “for speaking ill of the dead.”

“You may have been right, Consuelo, don’t feel bad about thinking that. I never had a

good impression of him, but just between the two of us, I donated money to the church

anyway. I thought it was the least I could do since I didn’t want to help the man by

working at the church.”

“Oh, Miss Esther, I did hear something about that, you know how people talk. You are

a saint!”

“Good grief, let’s not get carried away. Bring some of that wine I opened yesterday,

the pozole is out of this world. I may be coming down with a cold, can you stay late

today?” Esther was slightly manic with relief. She wanted Consuelo there in case more

news was in the offing and to answer the phone, but her spirits soared.

Consuelo hurried off to bring Esther the bottle of wine and a wine glass. Esther had at

the soup with gusto. She piled on the lettuce and onions but passed on the sliced

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radishes. She was still slightly chilled in spite of the warming meal, and she decided to

go back to bed after lunch, grab a book, and settle in for the afternoon.

My God, I’ve pulled it off, she thought. I’ve really pulled it off. I’m home free!

Late in the afternoon, snuggled in bed and waiting for Consuelo to bring her the hot

buttered rum, Esther was too euphoric to read or nap. The cold had finally left her body.

It was nothing short of amazing how her risks had paid off. She had been right about the

seriousness of Hiller’s heart condition, right about his shame concerning his ugliness,

right about his lack of experience with women.

And right about the tapes. There were so many of them, who knows what other people

he had taped besides Santiago, but it didn’t matter to her any longer. The tapes were

gone forever.

It was still afternoon but the sun slipped toward the horizon, turning the west into a

blaze of crimson and orange. There were no clouds, but the night was going to be very

cold indeed. Esther sighed and slipped farther down under her comforter.

She heard the phone ring, but Consuelo had instructions not to bother her. Esther

would deal with any messages tomorrow.

A little later, Consuelo came into the bedroom bearing a small tray. She set Esther’s

drink on the nightstand.

“Are you feeling all right, Miss Esther?” inquired Consuelo. She couldn’t hide the

excitement in her voice.

“I’m fine, Consuelo, I just have a slight cold, by tomorrow I’ll be back to normal.

What’s up? I can tell by your face you’ve had more news,” smiled Esther, thinking that

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Hiller’s death was probably going to be the town entertainment for at least a couple of

weeks because of the break-in. She could imagine the alarm and suspicion set off by this

highly unusual evidence of criminal activity! She couldn’t suppress a giggle.

“You’ll never guess, Miss Esther! That was María on the phone, she’s heard some

more news about Father Hiller. And you were right,” added Consuelo solemnly, “he was

a bad man, an evil man, and may he burn in Hell!”

Esther was astonished. She had never heard Consuelo express such anger and disgust.

“Good Lord, what in the world did he do?”

Consuelo’s lip trembled with affront.

“When the sheriff looked over the parish office, you know, investigating the break-in,

he found some notebooks that Father Hiller had written in. The sheriff took them back to

Town Hall as evidence, I guess, and you’ll never in all your life guess what was in them.”

Consuelo didn’t give Esther a chance to guess.

“He was a terrible man, Miss Esther! He had been writing down the things people

confessed to him! There were dates and everything, it was a sacrilege! He had violated

the holiness of the confessional! María said he had been doing it for years, way before he

came to Cormorant Hill. It will take the sheriff hours to go through all those notebooks,

but it looks like he suspects the break-in had to do with what the father was doing in the

confessional.”

Consuelo lowered her voice dramatically:

“María said the sheriff thinks Father Hiller was using the confessions to blackmail

people, otherwise why would he do what he did?

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“They found a tape recorder in the office, and the sheriff thinks maybe the father was

taping confessions, not just writing about them. There were no tapes, though, so María

doesn’t know why the sheriff thinks that. Maybe there was something about it in the

notebooks, who knows? But a priest who doesn’t respect confession! I’ve never heard of

such a thing!

“What the sheriff can’t figure out is why someone would force open those drawers and

leave all the notebooks if the motive behind the break-in had something to do with the

confessions. I guess people’s behavior is a mystery, but God will set things right one

way or another.”

Having consoled herself with faith in her God, Consuelo took the tray and quietly left

the bedroom, gently closing the door behind her.

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