Free Black Creek Crossing by John Saul Page B

laughter had hurt.

Chapter 10
    S IT REALLY OURS, MOM?” ANGEL SULLIVAN ASKED AS her mother pulled the Chevelle to a stop well behind the big yellow truck Marty had rented the day before. All three of them had been up until past midnight, packing everything into the truck except the blankets in which they caught a few hours of rest before getting up with the sun to make the drive to Roundtree.
    “Why don’t we go right now?” Angel had suggested when the last box had been stuffed into the truck. “I’m not going to be able to sleep, anyway.”
    “And do what when we get there?” her mother replied. “Haul everything inside in the middle of the night? What would people think?”
    When her father had been no more enthusiastic than her mother, Angel wrapped herself up in a blanket and tried to go to sleep. But between the hardness of the floor and the excitement of moving in the morning, she hadn’t slept at all.
    Or at least not for more than a few minutes.
    But now the night was over, and the drive was finished, and the house at Black Creek Crossing was standing before her, looking even more wonderful than she remembered.
    “It’s really ours,” Myra Sullivan replied, shutting off the engine. She got out of the car as Marty emerged from the cab of the truck.
At least for now,
she added silently to herself. She hadn’t slept much last night either, but it wasn’t out of excitement as much as worry. Until she got the closing papers, she hadn’t realized just how much the mortgage payments would be—almost twice what the rent on the duplex behind the rectory in Eastbury had been—and there were so many times over the last few years when she’d wondered how they were going to make the rent that the idea of a mortgage terrified her. Falling behind in the rent was one thing; falling behind on the mortgage could cost them the house.
    “Will you for Christ’s sake stop worrying?” Marty had told her over and over again. “You think Ed Fletcher’s ever going to fire me? He’s family, for Christ’s sake!”
    Myra had known better than to remind him that his sister-in-law’s husband was among the thirteenth generation of Fletchers in Massachusetts, while Marty’s family had arrived in Boston as servants—perhaps to cousins of Ed Fletcher—only four generations back. There wasn’t much likelihood that Edward Arlington Fletcher was going to claim close kinship to Martin O’Boyle Sullivan, the fact that they had married sisters notwithstanding. And if the chips were ever down, Myra was fairly certain that Joni Fletcher would stand with her husband rather than Marty.
    Still, Marty hadn’t been drinking as much the last few weeks, which was a good sign, and maybe after getting fired by Jerry O’Donnell—who was a lot closer to being “family” to Marty than Ed Fletcher would ever be—he’d learned his lesson.
    And maybe actually owning the house would give him the motivation that having nothing never had.
    Marty pulled open the back doors of the truck, climbed in, and began handing boxes down to Myra, who passed them on to Angel. “Shall I start taking them in?” Angel asked as the pile on the lawn began to grow.
    “Maybe we’d better all take them in,” Myra replied, glancing at the sky, which was rapidly clouding over.
    “It’s not gonna rain,” Marty declared. “Let’s just keep going.”
    The three of them unloaded the truck as fast as they could, and moved the furniture into the house so it wouldn’t get ruined if it rained. In less than an hour they’d hauled in the beds, and in another hour Marty had gotten them set up. The table was in the kitchen, and most of the rest of the furniture was in the living room.
    They were only half done when there was a flash of lightning and a crack of thunder. A moment later the first drops of rain splattered onto the pile of packing boxes Marty had left on the lawn. “Goddammit, how come it always happens to me?” he complained, climbing out of the