Chapter 14: Five Cars

Abby's POV

Five cars came down my drive on Saturday at noon, one behind the other, with their headlights on in broad daylight.

I was in the corral with a yearling filly on a long line.

I knew the cars before I knew the faces.

The church women had arrived.

They got out in a cluster, carrying foil pans and a pie carrier, in their good Saturday cardigans.

The clerk from the feed store was at the back with a coffee cake.

I dropped the line and let the filly trot off.

Jesse was mending the paddock gate thirty feet away, and he stopped hammering.

Kit had come to the bunk house door with Lottie on her hip.

"Abby," the oldest of the women said, in her pastor's-wife voice. "We've all been so worried."

"Have you?"

"We've been praying for you for ten days."

"I'm sure it helped," I said. "Somebody put my name on the prayer chain."

The woman's face went pink.

"It said, 'Abby Renner, whose husband has strayed.' I got that from three different people. One of them handed it to me over a pound of nails."

"We never meant..."

"You meant to be kind," I said. "I know. That's what makes it so hard to forgive."

The clerk stepped forward with her coffee cake.

"Abby, I said some things at the register. I said it in front of a line of people, and I don't know why I did, except everybody else was saying it."

"You asked me if I wanted to go on carrying his name."

"I did."

"You asked it loud."

"I did." She swallowed. "I'm sorry. I came to say so."

I looked at all of them.

None of them looked at Jesse.

None of them looked at Kit.

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