Free Going to the Chapel: A Novella by Rita Herron

kitten hissed at them through the window as if he realized they’d come from an enemy camp.
    By the time Izzy got back to her aunt’s house, Daisy was buried in cooking utensils and cake batter. Aunt Dottie was curled by the fire, crocheting placements for the dining table at the inn. The kitty jumped down to run to her aunt, then plopped on the floor at her feet and fell asleep again.
    She didn’t see Caroline, but as she climbed the steps, her sister’s voice echoed from inside her bedroom. She was on the phone again, just as she had been the night before. “I love you, too, honey. I can’t wait to get back.”
    Izzy’s heart squeezed. At least Caroline was happy and had found love.
    To Izzy, it seemed like just yesterday that they’d been teenagers talking boyfriends, pedicures, and prom dresses.
    Except the last few days there hadn’t been any giggling or sharing secrets.
    She didn’t even know her sisters’ husbands’ names.
    More memories of childhood crashed back as she glanced at the bulletin board full of pictures in her room. She and Daisy and Caroline wading in the creek. Riding their first horses at the stables in the mountains. Eating boiled peanuts and picking strawberries. Diving into the icy river from the bridge at the swimming hole where the kids hung out in the summer.
    Exhausted and weary, she changed into her pj’s and crawled into bed. But more memories carried her back to when she was a little girl, and she had her sisters had first come to live with their aunt.
    She closed her eyes, but an image of her mother being hauled toward the police car flashed before her.
    “I found your daddy in bed with my hairdresser! The sleazy two-timing son of a bitch!”
    Izzy could see the column Nosy Nellie had written as if it was yesterday.
Naughty in Matrimony
By Nellie Needlemyer
MARY KAY SASSAFRAS ARRESTED FOR MURDER!
Late today, witnesses reported seeing Mary Kay Sassafras attack local hairstylist Connie McElroy in the Fluff and Dye. Mary Kay shoved Connie’s head under the hot water in the washing station, then poured red dye all over her blonde hair. She held her down until she fried Connie’s blonde curls, then chopped her hair into pieces.
Apparently that morning she’d had a complete out-of-body at the sight of Connie’s fake eyelashes on her husband’s pillow, but he’d already left for the chicken plant, so she went to confront Connie first. Some said she was so cunning that she sat quietly while Connie gave her a perm and styled her hair before she went berserk.
Patrons of the diner across the street then saw Mary Kay fly out of town in her Corvair, peeling rubber and screaming that she was going to make Waylin suffer.
When she arrived home, she grabbed the cast-iron skillet and chased Waylin down to the pea patch, where she slammed him over the head with the frying pan.
When Sheriff Harper showed up to arrest her, she claimed she hadn’t meant to kill him—that most of the blood on the chickenshit’s clothes was chicken blood, not blood from his head injury.
But he was still dead. The peas hadn’t fared too well either.
Mary Kay’s sister, Dottie, a pillar of the community and the head of the garden club—and no stranger to trouble where her volatile sister was concerned—had no comment on the incident, although she kindly offered to take in Mary Kay’s hellion daughters.
The Prayer Circle is holding a candlelight vigil tonight at seven p.m. to pray for Dottie.
    Izzy wrestled with the covers, trying to banish the memory.
    She’d only been five at the time, and hadn’t understood how her mama had lost control like that.
    Not until a few days ago, when she’d discovered Ray sneaking money from her panty drawer to buy teddies for the other women in his life.
    An image of blue-haired Mona Medensky in a thong made her shudder. There should be a cutoff age for women to wear thongs.
    If her daddy had been a cheater and liar like Ray, how could she blame her mother?
    Caroline’s