Poisoned Petals Read Free Page A

like an hour in purgatory. “I’m pretty busy myself right now with the shop. I’ll tell Darmus I saw you. Bye, Luther.”
    “Peggy, I think I might be dying.”
    She paused, surprised at what he said and not sure what to answer. Luther very rarely said personal things to her.
    “I’m sorry. Has the doctor said something to you?”
    “He doesn’t have to. I know what it looks like. I saw it happen to Rebecca. Darmus and I watched her go. There was nothing we could do.”
    Rebecca, his older sister, had died from cancer about two years ago, just after Luther found out about his own disease. There were only the three of them left from the family. Her death, when it came, had been a terrible blow to the two brothers.
    Peggy wanted to reassure him. But his sallow face and dwindling frame told its own story. The disease had taken its toll on him.
    “I know.” Peggy bit her lip, trying to decide what to say to comfort him. With anyone else, it would have been simple. She would have hugged them and found the words of comfort she needed. But with Luther, she wasn’t sure what to do, so she tried to be respectful and careful with her words. “You’re a man of faith. You’ve got God on your side.”
    “Faith!” Luther spat out the word like it was bitter fruit on his tongue. “What good is faith when a man can see the end? Did God save Rebecca? Will he save me?”
    “I don’t know. But you’ve given counsel and solace to hundreds of people in your time as a minister. Surely, you know the answers better than I do.”
    “I know the answers.” He started walking toward his car, his thin shoulders hunching forward. “There is nothing out there but blackness, Peggy. We are all born of sin and we will all return to the dust of the grave. That is the answer.”
    Peggy was relieved when he got in his car and left without another word. She knew Rebecca’s death had embittered both brothers. Rebecca had been the oldest sister, and she’d acted as a mother to all the children. Watching her die had been horrible for her brothers.
    But Luther’s new attitude stunned Peggy. His cancer had taken away his belief in God, which had sustained him through his sister’s death. Without that it seemed there was nothing left for him.
    She understood that terrible darkness. Her husband, John Lee, had been killed two years before when he’d been called to a routine domestic violence case. There was no warning, no premonition of disaster. He kissed her good-bye, left the house like he did a thousand other times, and two hours later, his partner knocked on her door to tell her John was dead.
    Peggy hadn’t been sure she would ever be able to crawl out of that black hole. Nothing could fill it in the days and weeks after John died. But finally, light began to creep into her world. She began to feel the warmth of the sun on her face and hear the cries of the songbirds in the morning. She was still alive. John was dead, but she had to live on without him.
    It took her a long time to go back to church. She blamed God for what happened. She blamed the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department for not knowing how dangerous the situation was. She was furious and totally lost.
    Then she walked out into the yard they’d both loved one morning and decided to start the garden shop they’d always talked about. It took every penny she could borrow and scrape together, including John’s entire pension, to get the shop going. But once it was there, she realized it was the balm her soul needed. When she was there, she was with John.
    But Darmus and Luther hadn’t come to any place like that after Rebecca died. They still both grieved for her. Darmus kept going with his classes at UNC-Charlotte where he taught botany, and his Feed America group continued to grow. Luther developed cancer.
    Now Darmus was on the verge of losing his brother, too. She didn’t want to know how that would affect him.
    On impulse, she took out her cell phone and called