Page 105 of The Night the Lights Went Out
SUGAR
“Damn.”
Sugar rarely cussed, and definitely never in public. But she was in her own living room, watching an exciting repeat episode ofMurder, She Wrote, and just as they were about to reveal the murderer, the power had gone out.
She was prepared and had a flashlight and an extra set of batteries on her coffee table—both gifts from Wade. The flashlight was a tiny one, light and plastic so she could hold it and carry it without taxing her hands too much. She didn’t want to admit that she was grateful, having lived through all kinds of storms and tornado warnings and having never needed more than a candle and a match. At least this way she didn’t have to worry about setting the whole house on fire because of her shaking hands.
Using the little flashlight to guide her, she made her way to the kitchen to make sure it wasn’t just her house without power. Merilee’s house was in complete darkness, too, so it had to be the danged storm. She frowned. This outage was very inconvenient. It was still too early to go to bed, but she couldn’t watch television or read a book without proper lighting.
Sugar stared through the window again, deciding what to do. Merilee was home—Sugar had seen all the lights turned on, the house blazing like a bonfire—meaning they could probably see the house from Mars. Even though Sugar didn’t pay the electricity bill, it still irked her.
She needed to talk with Merilee, to tell her what she’d discovered in the yearbook, let her know that she’d already told Daisy—she couldn’t think of her by any other name now. If Sugar had known that Merilee would actually spend a night in jail, she would have waited another day. No sense in giving Daisy a head start.
She glanced over at the wall phone. Why hadn’t Merilee stopped at Sugar’s house first? Maybe she’d tried to call and found out that the lines were down. Feeling desperate, Sugar had even put on her raincoat and taken it off twice already, planning on heading out in the storm to walk back to Merilee’s house, but had allowed good reason to intercede. She wouldn’t be of any use to anybody if she fell in the mud and couldn’t get back up. Her teeth began to hurt, so she forcibly relaxed her jaw. She should try the phone again.
Sugar pointed her way with the flashlight, then picked up the phone, listening for the dial tone. Dead silence. She pushed down the receiver several times, but the phone stayed quiet.
“Damn,” she said for the second time in less than an hour. She’d have to ask in the next Bible study if there was something in the Bible against swearing. She was sure she knew the answer, but she couldn’t think right now. Too much going on these days, what with Merilee going to jail and those poor children needing someone to cook for them. It was a wonder she remembered to put on her dress in the morning.
She looked out the window, having already decided she’d just go to bed early and go over to Merilee’s first thing, when something small and white ran past her back door outside. Pressing her glasses up her nose, she peered out again, wishing for about the hundredth time that she could see at night. It was horribly inconvenient, and, if anyone asked her, she’d say that it was rude of the good Lord to add night blindness to her growing list of things about getting older that were downright hateful.
She blinked, trying to get her eyes to try a little harder, staring at the spot where she was sure she’d seen Colin’s dog. It wasn’t his dog, of course, but she’d taken to calling it that because he said he saw it so much. Sugar pressed her nose against the cold glass of the window, as if that would work, and instead knocked her glasses off her face.
Leaning down, she used the flashlight to find them, then took a while straightening before putting them back on her nose and looking out the window. There. There it was again. It was hard to tell exactly because of the dark and the rain, but she was sure that white smudge outside in the grass was the little dog Colin claimed to have seen.
The thunder rumbled overhead, the lightning casting a bluish white glow over the porch and the boxwood hedges and the grassy area behind the house. It was the dog. She was sure of it now. And it was sitting and staring back at her.
As quickly as she could move, she went to the back door and opened it, hoping the dog wouldn’t be too scared to come to her. It shouldn’t be out in the storm, wet and without shelter. It would be cold and probably hungry.
“Come,” she called, not knowing what people said these days to call their dogs. “Come here, little doggie. Let’s get you inside from the rain.” She was speaking to the dark now, waiting for the next flash of lightning. As if answering her prayer, a bolt of lightning streaked across the sky as thunder cracked above, showing her the dog at the moment it turned and ran in the direction of Merilee’s house.
She closed the door against the cold and wind, deciding what she should do. Only a fool would go out in this weather. But that little dog was alone and must be scared. Maybe if it hadn’t looked so much like Dixie, she might have let her good sense prevail over any sentimentality. But it couldn’t be helped. Besides, she needed to talk to Merilee.
Her mind made up, Sugar moved cautiously through her dark house, the small but powerful beam of the flashlight guiding her way. She made her way to the front hall closet, which opened with just a push. Wade had changed out the door just for her when her arthritis started getting bad in her right hand.
She found her raincoat again and carefully placed the flashlight on the hall table, knocking over one of the pictures in the process because she couldn’t see. The coat buttons were beyond her abilities, but she could still tie a decent knot with the thick belt ties to keep the coat closed. She stuck her hand in one of the side pockets and found a plastic rain hat. She’d once had dozens of them, but over the years they’d deteriorated or had been torn in too many places to be useful. Nobody seemed to use them anymore; they were as out of style now as permanent waves.
After placing it on her head, she did her best to tuck in her hair and knot the ties under her chin before retrieving her flashlight. She’d made it to the door when thunder crackled above her, and the sky lit up with an odd green hue as lightning split the night and the storm sirens began to wail.
• • •
MERILEE
Merilee pressed herself against the hallway wall and stared at Heather Blackford in the bathroom doorway. She held the marble clock in one gloved hand, the steam from the faucet filling the room behind her. She was in head-to-toe black, in one of her designer workout outfits with a matching hoodie. She wore only socks on her feet, and Merilee found herself staring at them, as if the socks might explain something.
Heather followed her gaze. “I didn’t want to track mud into the house, and there was a lot of mud on my boots—or Lily’s boots, I should say—because I parked my car about a mile away and had to walk.”
Lily’s boots.The ones she’d seen on the porch. She was having problems putting this together, understanding what Heather was trying to tell her. “Why are you here?” Merilee asked, some sense of preservation making her inch her way past the bathroom, toward the front room, where a weather alert was currently blaring from the television.
Heather stepped in front of her, blocking her exit, and laughed, the sound grating. And memorable. And there it was, like a cold slap to her face; Merilee finally knewwhy. “Daisy,” Merilee said quietly, as much in awe as in terror.
“Don’t call me that,” Heather shouted. “That wasnevermy name.”
Merilee shook her head in confusion, trying to get all the pieces to fit together. Wondering if this was the karma Sugar was always talking about. “But why are you here?” Merilee asked, not because she didn’t know, but because she couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“Sugar called me and left a message. Apparently she saw your yearbook. Happily, your night in jail gave me the time I needed to think and plan. Because if Sugar figured it out, I knew it was just a matter of time before you did, too. Although in high school you were pretty stupid. I was always so much smarter than you, remember?” She clutched the marble clock in front of her for a moment. “I’ve found that it’s the girls who are born beautiful who are always the most clueless. They figure out pretty early on how to get by on looks and charm, so there’s no need to work on brains or anything practical. It’s the ugly girls who have to cultivate their cunning and brains.” She took a step closer to Merilee. “Don’t you think?”
“High school was a long time ago, Heather. None of that stuff matters anymore.”
