A Dash of Murder Read Free

maybe I had settled in life. At first, I felt like someone had just pushed the handle and was happily flushing me down the drain. Instead of feeling pregna nt, I felt fat and undesirable.
    Barry had constantly pointed out to me that I didn’t dress right. I didn’t have that casual chic look that would be so needed in his future life. He wanted that look of natural beauty that only money could buy. I felt uncomfortable out on business dinners with Barry, his partner and various clients. If he felt I had made some sort of social blunder, you could bet he would certainly rerun the whole conversation from the evening when we returned home. My hair is chestnut brown and to my shoulders now, but back then at his request, I had dyed my hair blonde. He thought blonde women were sexier, somehow. The world is full of blonde women who aren’t, and I joined them for a short while. Nothing I did, nothing I said, nothing at all seemed to be up to his standards. When the prenatal test predicted we might not have a picture-perfect baby on the way, it was just too much for him. I had fallen short. I was not worthy. He had at first been worried the baby wouldn’t be a boy, so the idea of a disabilit y was earth-shattering for him.
    After my husband left, I found out he hadn’t been too adept at facing the truth in other ways, as well. He had sweetly left me a shoebox full of bills hidden on the top shelf of his closet. We were young, and I was dumb, thinking that four lousy commission checks paid enough salary to support us with a home and fairly new car, which he took with him. He was kind enough to leave me with his old clunker, a Chevy station wagon. Not only were we behind on the bills for the prenatal care at the doctor’s office, but he had also made some terrible investments at the advice of his partner, Canfield. Our finances were a ticking time bomb, which exploded the day after he left. The bank started calling me about repossessing the car. The mortgage company wanted to know where my payment was for the last three months. I was deep in debt, and all I had was a lousy job at the movie theater to pay it all off. Barry was not even close to the man I thought he was .
    When Zach arrived, I faced raising him as a single parent. I had not planned to share too much about Barry with Zach. It just seemed cruel, and the kids at school probably took care of that for me. Nevertheless, he grew up harboring some fantasy that his dad was lost or hurt but would show up as a hero, just like the last pag e of a superhero graphic novel.
    A month after Barry’s exit, I attended Lamaze classes with my Aunt Maggie instead of my husband. It was then I began to feel stirrings. It wasn’t the baby causing all of this ruckus, although he did pitch in a healthy, happy kick now and again. My stirrings were anger. I went home and grabbed those golf clubs out of the front hall closet where they had waited patiently since that eventful night. I lifted the heavy fake leather bag and almost fell back with the counter weight of the baby I was carrying. I lugged the bag and clubs out to the trash can. He would have screamed if he had seen me. He would have been sure to tell me just how much those stupid iron sticks cost him. I figured they had cost me a whole lot more. Maybe I didn’t want to work in a theater taking tickets for the rest of my life, so I could pay off the lifestyle he thought he should have. Maybe I wanted to pursue something that was not in his plans. I wanted to pursue something of my own. I had to find a way to support myself and my child.
    I was now going to be a single parent, and working at the theater was not going to cut it. I wanted to take control of the chaos I found myself in and needed to come up with my own life plan.
    In college, I majored in English. I could easily be a teacher if I went back for my teaching certificate. The idea of teaching had never appealed to me. I liked to write, but I didn’t picture myself a