Page 45 of Sunday Morning

When I heard the door shut, I emerged from the closet.

Wesley Cory was cheating on Violet. I couldn’t believe it. The previous day, he was at church with Vi before she and Matt left for St. Louis. They were holding hands, singing hymns, and praying along with everyone else.

It made no sense.

Why was he cheating? And what woman willingly had sex with a married man? Sex was awful.

I slithered down the stairs and checked the front windows. When I saw Wesley’s truck turning out of their lane, I sprinted to my car, carefully slid the guitar in the back, and sped home. The secrets were piling up.

The woman straddling Wesley in bed had long black hair and a bikini tan line. And she soundedsofamiliar. What was I supposed to do with that disturbing revelation?

“Where did you get that?” Gabby asked when I walked into the house with Isaac’s guitar.

“I’m borrowing it from Matt’s brother,” I said past my nerves.

“Borrowing it, or you stole it?” She grinned. “You look like you’re freaking out.”

“I’m not freaking out.” I headed upstairs.

“How was work?” Dad called from the living room before I reached the top of the stairs.

“Uh, fine. It was a slow day. I think it was the on-and-off rain,” I said in a breathless voice. Gabby was right—I was freakingout.

“Hey!” Mom chirped, scaring the bejesus out of me as she emerged from her bedroom.

“Hey,” I rushed into my room.

“Whose guitar?”

“Isaac’s. He’s letting me borrow it.”

Mom stood in my doorway. “That’s nice of him. You’ve always wanted to play the guitar. But be careful; those strings will be unforgiving to your fingers, and you won’t be able to play the piano.”

I set the guitar on my bed and crossed my arms, then shoved my fingers into my jeans pockets for two seconds before I wrung them out in front of me, and finally, crossed my arms again.

Mom squinted. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I clipped too quickly to be believable.

She narrowed her eyes even more. “Sarah,” she said slowly.

“If you saw something you weren’t supposed to see, would you tell anyone?”

“What did you see?”

“Nothing. It’s hypothetical.”

“Sarah, is someone in trouble?”

“No. Well, not exactly.”

“Just tell me.”

I shook my head. “I can’t. That’s what I’m saying. If I thought I could tell you, I’d just tell you instead of asking you a hypothetical question. I may have seen something that’s not any of my business. It’s not like I witnessed a crime, well maybe a moral crime, but not like someone was breaking the law—robbing a bank or anything like that. And if I tell someone what I saw, really bad things could happen as a result. So I don’t know what to do.”

“You’re being too cryptic. I can’t help you if you don’t give me more information.”

I frowned. “I can’t.”

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