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told you my girls were night and day. Antoinette was day, Willa was night. She wasn’t fat, wasn’t skinny. I guess you could say she was attractive, if a woman like her turns you on. I’m saying woman because she was fifteen when I last saw her. She started smelling herself and sassing me when she turned fourteen. Can you believe I overheard that heifer telling Paul to keep an eye on me because she was worried about me? Told him I had been talking to myself and hearing voices. She wasn’t slick. She told those lies to get Paul on her side so she could sneak out with Larry Watkins, her chemistry tutor. Paul was dumb enough to believe her and started monitoring me. He’d pop home from a cabinet job just to see how I was doing after I lost my teaching job. He wasn’t slick either. I know he was doing that on his way to his other woman’s house. I can’t prove it, but I know it in my heart.
    The last I heard, Willa was married with a daughter and living in Birmingham, Alabama. I thought about reaching out to her, but then I recalled the Roundup herbicide she put in my oatmeal and mashed potatoes, the arsenic-laced sweet tea, and the D-Con pellets she mixed with my brownies, and I decided to leave well enough alone. But she is my child, and I deserve to see her again. I’ve been aching for both of them lately.
    The best years of my life were spent in the home-house. A woman is supposed to make her house a castle. That means keeping it together and being open to letting people stop by if they need rest or comfort. I kept the house ready for my family, but I also kept it together for Jesus. Think about how it says in the Bible, “He stands at the door and knocks.” Do you really think Jesus wants to come in a house stepping over dirty underwear, half-eaten food, or roach droppings? Let’s not talk about dirty windows that haven’t been scrubbed.
    I tried keeping everything together before it slipped away from me. I had to leave the home-house and move into a place downtown called the Drummer’s Home. It was a long waiting list to get in, but Queen Mavis waved her magic wand and I got an apartment. I kept it neat as a pin until the mall incident. I’m not blaming anyone for what happened, but the woman who told me to kill President Reagan had been after me long before the mall. She climbed in the window at night whispering to me about the deed, she came through the gas oven unit, and she followed me back and forth to school when I was teaching. I believe she is the reason I lost my job, because she reported back to Principal Jones all that was going on in my home. Who else would have told him about the D-Con pellets, the fights with Paul, and the trouble I had keeping the girls in check?
    I miss my children. Sometimes, I miss Paul. I don’t know how much longer I have left on this earth, but it would be nice to touch the girls, to see how they’ve grown up. I wonder if my granddaughter took after me or Paul. I wonder if they think of me. Annalease is like a daughter, but she can’t substitute for Antoinette and Willa. I know I’ll see them again. I know it in my heart.

Chapter 7

    L amonte changed his mind. As he licks my feet like a four-course meal, I thrash about with a pillow over my head. I toss and turn, glad to be conscious after the blackout. He realizes how ridiculous it is to throw away our years together. I grab the sheets in anticipation of the make-up sex. He flicks his tongue between each toe, a slobbering, repentant fool. I love him more for his desire to make things up to me. My eyes tighten as I picture him in his red briefs with the Angelina Jolie pucker I bought for Valentine’s Day. If only I had the negligee he bought me. We could start this make-up party right.
    Softly, I say, “Lamonte.” I wait for him to acknowledge me. “Lamonte.”
    â€œWhiplash, no!” a woman’s voice yells.
    I fling the pillow from my