Page 14 of The Fault Between Us
“Don’t you need prayers?”
“Freud says prayer is an infantile neurosis,” Frannie declared with authority.
Bridget raised her brows. “Do you even know what that means?”
Frannie’s face got that stubborn look. “It means it’s just mumbo jumbo. I’ve prayed for lots of stuff and never got even one thing from God. He’s either not listening, or he’s not there.”
Bridget’s irritation came rushing back. “God hears your prayers, even if you don’t get what you ask for, Frannie. He loves you.” She frowned in consternation at her little sister. “You know that, don’t you?”
Frannie didn’t look convinced. “What about all the people who die in floods and fires? What about Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens? Don’t you think they prayed God would save them, and he didn’t lift a finger. Doesn’t sound like love to me.”
The train jerked and the brakes screeched. Passengers around them stood and began to gather their belongings as the conductor announced they were pulling into the Livingston station.
Bridget gathered her things, glad she didn’t have to answer Frannie’s ridiculous question. They disembarked, and she paid a porter to transfer their suitcases to the bus, then bought them both breakfast while they waited for the call to board the Greyhound to West Yellowstone.
An hour later, the bus wound through deep green valleys with steep slopes blanketed in trees, and Frannie was looking a little green around the gills. She moaned and covered her mouth with her hand.
Bridget passed her the waxed paper bag she’d packed for just such an emergency. “Serves you right.”
“Some nurse you are,” Frannie muttered.
Frannie didn’t even manage to vomit discreetly.
chapter 8:CLAIRE
Claire stood with Jenny in her arms, anticipation warring with anxiety as she watched the passengers disembark from the Greyhound bus outside the Depot. Red stood beside her, as silent as a statue and just as stone-faced.
Red had barely spoken to her since she sold Marigold.
Claire had met him outside when he came home from work on Rosie. “We had to get the truck fixed, and the telephone,” she told him as he slid off Rosie and looked with disbelief at Bess alone in the pasture.
Red followed her into the house, cleaned from top to bottom and smelling of vinegar and scrubbing powder. She held out Bridget’s letter as proof. “We needed groceries, and money for gas and to make things nice.” Red ignored the letter, his gaze on the braided throw rug she’d bought to cover a hole in the linoleum floor, the new curtains on the front window, a used table and lamp beside the couch.
“Red,” Claire said, her throat thickening and alarm rising in her. “Say something.”
“You sold your wedding present... to make things nice?” he said. It wasn’t anger in his voice but something worse. Hurt. Betrayal.
He’d got it wrong, but she couldn’t tell him that. She’d sold Marigold for Red’s sake, so that her dad wouldn’t come out here and humiliate him. But they never talked about Dad or how he’d treated Red at the wedding. “You told me to do what I thought best,” she said finally. Claire waited for him to tell her he understood. He had to know it broke her heart to let Marigold go.
He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, his throat working like he was going to say something. He shook his head and swallowed. “I’m going for a ride.”
“Red, wait—”
Claire watched him leave, her chest tight. Couldn’t Red understand she’d done the only thing she could?
When he came in from his ride after dark, she took his dinner out of the oven and sat with him while he ate. He helped her with the dishes like he did every night, and she tried to ask him questions about his day at Sunnyslope, but his one-word answers only made the divide between them wider. “Are you coming to bed?” she asked him at ten o’clock when she turned off the radio.
“I’ll stay up for a while,” he said, not meeting her gaze.
Now, as they watched the passengers come off the bus at the Depot, Claire’s mouth went dry and her stomach flipped. How was she supposed to prove to Bridget that they were perfectly happy, with Red glowering beside her? And how was she supposed to repair the hurt she’d caused her husband under Bridget’s sharp gaze?
When Bridget stepped off the bus and into the late-afternoon sun, Claire stood on her tiptoes and waved. “It’s your auntie Bridget,” she told Jenny.
Bridget made a beeline toward them through the crowded Depot. She looked like she’d just stepped out of Reilly’s summer catalogue in a pink linen traveling suit that hugged her hourglass figure. When she reached them, she threw her arms around Claire and Jenny and squeezed. “I missed you so much.”
Claire squeezed her sister back. “It’s wonderful to see you,” she choked out.
Bridget stepped back, her hands on Claire’s shoulders. “You look terrific.” She glanced to where Red stood with Jenny. “Hello, Red.” She passed him her handbag and held out her hands for Jenny. “Give me that sweet baby girl.”
