Read Online Family Practice by Charlene Weir - Free Book Online Page A

women.” Willis said, his voice as thin as winter light. “It was an interest of Dorothy’s.”
    â€œHad that caused any problems?”
    â€œProblems? Certainly not.”
    â€œNo resentful husband ever threatened her?”
    He got a worried expression as he tried to pick through a cluttered mind for something important. “Not to my knowledge. I suppose it’s possible. None of them would have reason to harm her. It wasn’t as though she were hiding these women, simply patching them up when the occasion made it necessary.”
    Susan asked Vicky, “You got along well with Dorothy?”
    Before she could reply, Willis patted her hand and said, “Of course she did. I told you we were all very close. That includes Vicky.”
    One big, happy family, Susan thought, and made a mental note to question Vicky without her husband present. She kept an inquiring expression on her face and waited for an answer.
    â€œWe didn’t have a whole lot in common,” Vicky finally admitted.
    â€œNonsense.” Willis patted her hand again. “Dorothy loved you.”
    A shadow flashed across Vicky’s smooth face, gone too quickly to read, but it definitely wasn’t loving.
    *   *   *
    Vicky stood in the entryway as Willis opened the door for Chief Wren. After he closed it, he put his arms around her. She ought to feel sympathy or grief, or something. All she felt was sorry. Even in death, Dorothy was running their lives. She didn’t know how to comfort Willis.
    He gently kissed her forehead. “I think we’d better get ready to go. We’re supposed to be there at eight.”
    She gave him a smile and a little push. Anybody but Willis would think they were already ready. “I’ll be right along. Soon as I clear away the supper things.”
    She gathered dishes from the dining room table and carefully wiped crumbs from its perfect polished surface. She stacked the dishwasher, wiped down the cabinets, scrubbed the sink, and made sure everything was tucked away, swept up, smudges erased. As though wiping out any trace of her presence. A lump formed in her throat as she looked around the spotless kitchen: white appliances, dark wood cabinets, peach-veined tile flooring. Everybody thought it was her who wanted everything so neat, so clean, so untouched. She knew they sneered behind her back, felt superior and snide about her fluffy life. It wasn’t her at all, it was Willis. He was the one who wanted everything so clean it had no life.
    Tears came to her eyes as she compared this kitchen with the messy, disorganized one at home. Her mother cheerfully cooked huge meals, the washing-up often left until later if something more important needed tending to. The coffeepot was always hot on the stove, the sink filled with plates and cups from two brothers with appetites not satisfied by only three hefty meals a day.
    Dust and mud got tracked in on the worn linoleum from working in the fields, tending the livestock. As often as not, there was a bunch of chicks or an orphaned kitten in a box by the stove.
    For a moment, she wished she were back there, with her family, on the farm, in the kitchen. Except her parents had moved to Arizona to be near one of her brothers, and the farm had been sold. She knew there had been hard times, worry about money, anxiety about weather, and crops that were ruined, as they probably would be this year for anybody foolhardy enough to farm, but there’d been so many good times. Joyous times. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt joy.
    Her wedding day maybe. That had been joyous, all right. And she’d looked beautiful in the yards and yards of lace.
    She’d met Willis one rainy night when she’d backed the old family station wagon into his fancy sports car in the parking lot of Erle’s Market. It was all her fault; she’d been in a hurry, and with the rain so hard, she