Free The Seary Line by Nicole Lundrigan Page B

against that morbid understanding. And as he watched his children play and once again reflected on the love for his wife, he cracked open the door to emotion. A gust of hollow bliss kissed his face, then damp terror, balled-up at the core, snuck up from behind and slapped him.

chapter four
    Mrs. Delia Abbott, newest member of the First Ladies League, smoothed the starched gingham of her dress, checked the position of her collars, then opened the peeling gate that led to the clapboard church. Her shoes felt loose as she stepped onto the grounds, but when she glanced down, her laces were still snuggly tied. Just nervous, she decided, and her stomach was too: it bubbled and churned, panicked in shots of searing heat. Percy hadn’t helped matters much – being so angry when she’d left. Telling her she was foolish to overdo it. Just because she had a thimbleful of energy these past few weeks, why waste it trying to please a gaggle of unpleasable women? After all, had they really asked her to join? He’d made her admit it in front of frowning Stella. No. They hadn’t.
    As she stepped onto the gravel path, Delia considered how she liked the grounds of the church much more than its hollow interior. Every Sunday, mind-numbing work was set aside, and people found a moment to exhale, the space to ponder their past. When they congregated in the church, their communal air was so sore with emotion – over dead babies, drowned husbands, blighted crops, and empty nets –the damp wooden walls would almost weep. With all that despair billowing upwards, Delia imagined that one day, the entire roof might blow off.
    Outside the church, though, there was a gentle calm. A well-tended graveyard bordered the walkway, and there was serenity in its neat rows of mounds and dips, lines of painted crosses. Pure and absolute peace.
    Delia took a deep breath, tried to draw that sentiment into her lungs. Then she noticed a mangy crackie among the grave markers, snapping its jaws at blackflies overhead. Dancing and jumping, the dog was the picture of unfettered joy, and Delia smiled when she came closer. She could take a lesson or two from that dog. It didn’t care that its matted fur clung to its ribs or that flies were not the meal it craved. A simple life, appreciating what was available, and that was enough. Maybe on her way home, she would try to lure it along. See what Percy would say. Shabby, yes, but she could tell it was full of boundless optimism, just by the way it waggled its behind mid-air trying to gain height.
    Though when she passed by, the dog’s demeanour changed. It froze stock-still, locked its shiny brown eyes on the air that surrounded her. She paused for a moment, held out her palm, offering a scratch behind the ears. “Here, puppy.” But the dog backed into the shrubbery, fur puffed into a mane, a snarling show of yellow teeth. “Angry too?” she mused. “Were you talking to my husband?” And then she reached for the wooden railing, mounted the stairs in her uncertain stride.
    â€œWell now, don’t Mrs. Abbott look lovely,” Mrs. Hickey announced when Delia entered through the open door.
    â€œAll ready for Sunday service,” Mrs. Cable said tersely. “Though we’s only cleaning today.”
    Delia reached up, touched the damp wire rollersunderneath the polka-dotted handkerchief that covered her head. Shame, a hidden spring of it, quickly broke through the surface and flooded her. Who washes her hair before cleaning a dust-riddled church? Who wears a good dress? Someone who doesn’t know better, she decided. These were errors, and she now wished, in that moment of budding pride, she had not accepted when Reverend Hickey meekly suggested she join the church group. “Long overdue,” he’d said. Oh, the glee in her voice when she blurted “yes,” then how it drained away when she noticed the expression on the puffy face of Mrs.