Chapter 10: Behind the Lawyer's Building

Marlene walked straight past the courthouse square and down the alley that runs behind the lawyer's building.

I followed her with Eli on my hip.

She stopped beside a row of trash cans and a parked delivery van, where nobody from the conference room would see us.

She pressed her hand to her mouth. For a long time she said nothing.

"You stood up," I said.

"Yes."

"After Sunday. After the report, and the baby carrier, and every word he said to me."

"I know."

"You sat at that table, Marlene. You put your hands in your lap."

"I know what I did."

Her voice was thin and dry.

It was not the voice that had told me in my own kitchen that women don't always remember a night.

"I want to tell you something," she said. "Let me finish before you decide what to do about it."

I didn't promise.

She told me anyway.

"Thirty-three years ago I was thirty-three years old."

"I was married to a man who hadn't touched me in two years."

I stood very still.

"One spring Harlan was in Lubbock for four months, settling his father's land."

"Ellis Barksdale was the only man in Cedar Gap who asked how I was and waited for the answer."

"Marlene."

"Floyd was born the following January."

The delivery van rattled as a truck went by on the street.

"Floyd is Ellis's boy," she said. "Harlan has never known."

"Ellis delivered him himself. He has been standing behind my son ever since."

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