Ghost Light Read Free

slam shut. It sounded like a mass of boulders, thundering down a hillside, stopping with a final rumbling shudder. She could tell, just by the way it sounded, that Alex was drunk on his ass; and now that he was home, she knew that it would all start up again, the same way it always started up.
    Thank God, she thought, at least the kids are upstairs, asleep.
    Just like nearly every other night of the week, Alex had gone out drinking with his buddies straight from work. Three or more nights out of five, he never even came home for supper. For better than a year, now, Debbie hadn’t even bothered to set a place for him at the dining room table. Why go through the agony? Why deal with the heart-breaking, unspoken questions on both Billy’s and Krissy’s faces?
    Where’s Daddy? How come Daddy’s not home for supper?
    Debbie guessed Alex had been out to the Eagle’s Nest, the bar at the airport, either that or else one of the strip joints in downtown Omaha. It was well after midnight now, and she knew with dread certainty that he would burst into the house, stewed to the gills. God, most nights he was lucky to make it home without getting stopped by a cop or killed in an accident.
    No, wait a minute, that wasn’t luck!
    She would have been lucky if one of these nights he wrapped his car around a telephone pole. But she was tired of waiting for something like that, some divine intervention to get her out of her own, private hell. After months of agonizing over it, of talking to her sister and her minister, she had made up her mind. Now, if only she had the courage to follow through. But, like so many times before, she was afraid that when it came right down to saying the words I’m leaving you and I’m taking the kids , she would chicken out.
    Lord knows, in the past he’d beat her for saying much less!
    Sitting on the edge of her chair at the kitchen table, she focused on the open kitchen window, waiting to see his shadow slide across the screen as he made his way up the steps to the side door. She regretted that she hadn’t gone up to bed and at least faked being asleep, but she knew from painful experience that he would come upstairs and wake her up as soon as he didn’t find her downstairs. No, facing him here in the kitchen was best. At least the kids might not wake up once they started in with the yelling.
    And, oh, yes—there would be yelling tonight!
    Debbie folded her arms across her chest, heaved a deep sigh, and rubbed her biceps in an attempt to get rid of the spray of goose bumps that had covered her arms in spite of the pressing heat of the June night. No breeze came in through the open window; nothing to stir the air. That was early summer in Nebraska, for you. The curtains hung there, damp and limp from the humidity. From outside came the high, whining buzz of the cicadas, and below that, like the clopping of an axe, Debbie heard the erratic scuff of Alex’s shoes as he staggered up the concrete walkway.
    Why does it have to be this way? she wondered as she twined her fingers together in her lap. Why in the name of Christ does it have to be this way?
    Tears filled her eyes and threatened to spill, but she sniffed loudly and wiped her eyes with the heels of her hands, fighting hard for composure. She thought back on what her minister had told her, that she was a vessel of God, and that she had an obligation to stop the suffering of one of God’s beautiful creatures.
    Don’t cry! Just don’t cry! The time for crying is long past! she told herself. She knew, if he saw her sitting here, bawling her eyes out, he might not even give her a chance to say what she had to say before he started in on her.
    Debbie sniffed, closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and shook her head tightly.
    Christ, as if he needed an excuse to start in on her. She could be wearing the wrong color nightgown or the dishes for supper, which he hadn’t come home for, would still be in the sink, and that would be enough to set him off.