Free A Minister's Ghost by Phillip Depoy Page A

busied herself with work at the hospital; I’d been back home in the mountains for two years writing or researching, occupied with my work. Hollywood movies or New York television about urban sociology paint a picture of human sexuality that would shame a bacchanalian. But I’ve found that the genuine experiences of most honest Americans who live in small towns is much more sedate, slow moving—and secretive. Lucinda and I were in a glacially paced courting mode.
    Until the events of that night sped up the pace of our interaction significantly.
    Suffice it to say that the details of our mutuality will go to the grave with me, except to report that the process was gentle, silent, and slow enough to take up the entirety of that night.
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    I was out of bed at dawn. Lucinda had just fallen asleep. I wanted to get an early start on the day, and I knew if I allowed myself to fall asleep, I wouldn’t continue my investigation until the middle of the afternoon.
    Lucinda’s bedroom was dark, the curtains drawn. A painted wooden angel hung over the headboard of her oak Lincoln bed. The
rest of the room was stark, clean. The wooden floors were polished glassy. The only other piece of furniture was a large antique wardrobe with deer carved into the top piece.
    The promise of morning sun tantalized through the edges of the curtains. I crept into the bathroom, took a quick shower. I put back on the same clothes I’d been wearing the day before and tiptoed downstairs.
    I considered for a moment that I wouldn’t make it through the day without going home and making my requisite espresso. I finally opted for an English muffin and three mugs of Earl Grey tea.
    Ten minutes later, only slightly invigorated by the breakfast, I made it to my truck and slipped off the parking brake. In relative silence the truck rolled far enough to make it out of Lucinda’s yard before I had to start the engine.
    The morning was dawning much more pleasantly than the day before. Clouds were few, birds were abundant. The sky was turning blue quickly, the hard blue of November days.
    I had debated over and over about contacting the girls’ parents. I wanted to ask them a few questions, and a phone call seemed too cold. I was afraid to call them at all, in fact, because it’s easier to hang up on a person than it is to turn that same person away from your door. I thought if I showed up on their front porch, I could be done with my work and leave them alone in short order.
    I knew as I was driving to their house that my plan was ill-advised, but I couldn’t see an alternative. On the other hand, I knew well that I was sleep-deprived, caffeine deficient, and generally insensitive. Confusion was my only touchstone.
    I considered then that I ought not to be allowed to roam freely, that some sort of county ordinance should be passed requiring me to stay a hundred yards away from most decent folk.
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    The Dyson household, the only home Tess and Rory had ever known, was a grand, white construction, Victorian and stately. It was close to Blue Mountain’s courthouse, on Main Street, only several blocks from the business center of town. Mr. Robert Dyson was
head of our county school system if I remembered correctly what Lucinda had told me about him. I couldn’t recall his title. Lucinda and Robert were not especially close, and for that reason there had always been some tension between Lucinda and her sister Sara, who had married Robert when she was too young. Tess and Rory were the only children, and the true link between the sisters. Mrs. Sara Dyson, née Foxe, was a tireless churchwoman in Blue Mountain’s tiny Catholic community. Lucinda always said that Sara had converted to irritate her husband. Mr. Dyson was a Baptist. The religious disparity had raised eyebrows in town twenty years ago, but the dispute was an old, tired one when the century turned.
    The Dyson house was pristine from the outside, a small