War Room Read Free Page A

years earlier, and the foot powder seemed to take care of it. But maybe she was kidding herself. Maybe the odor was the sign of some deeper problem.
    What was she thinking? Some disease? Some problemwith her liver that leaked out the pores of her feet? She had a friend, Missy, who was constantly looking online at various aches and pains and connecting them with her own symptoms. One day she’d be worried about a skin problem and conclude she had melanoma. The next day a headache would be self-diagnosed as a tumor. Elizabeth vowed she would not become a hypochondriac. She just had stinky feet.
    She picked up one of her flats and sniffed. There’d been a cheese served at the hotel where she and Tony had honeymooned that smelled just like that. She dropped the shoe. Funny how a smell could trigger her brain to think about something that happened sixteen years earlier.
    She ran her hand over the comforter and thought about that first night together. All the anticipation. All the excitement. She hadn’t slept in two days and the wedding had been a blur. When her head hit the pillow in the honeymoon suite, she was just gone. Tony had been upset, and what red-blooded American male wouldn’t be? But what red-blooded American females needed was a little understanding, a little grace.
    She had made up for her honeymoon drowsiness the next day, but it was something they had to talk through. Tony had talked a lot in the year they had dated and been engaged, but not long after the I do s, something got his tongue and the river of words slowed to a drip. She wished she could find the valve or tell where to place the plunger to get him unclogged.
    They didn’t have a bad marriage. It wasn’t like those celebrities on TV who went from one relationship to the next or the couple down the street who threw things onto the lawn after every argument. She and Tony had produced a beautiful daughter and they had stable careers. Yes, he was a little aloof and they’d grown apart, but she was sure that drift wouldn’t last forever. It couldn’t.
    Elizabeth put her shoes away, as far back into the closet as she could, then went to the kitchen to start dinner. She filled a pot with water, put it on the stove, and dumped in the spaghetti. The water came to a slow boil, and she stirred the tomato sauce in a pan next to it.
    Elizabeth watched the spaghetti, feeling something happening, something boiling inside her. A stirring she couldn’t put her finger on. Call it restlessness or longing. Call it fear. Maybe this was all she could hope for. Maybe this was as good as marriage got. Or life, for that matter. Maybe they were destined to go separate ways and occasionally meet in the middle. But she had a nagging feeling that she was missing something. That their marriage could be more than two people with a nice house who rarely spent time together.
    Elizabeth was busy with the salad and Danielle was putting napkins next to each plate at the table when the garage door began its hideous sound   —a clacking that had gotten louder in the past year. If Elizabeth had been trying to sell their own house, she’d have suggested they get it looked at by her garage door guy. But Tony was content to let it clack and clamor.
    Like their marriage.
    “I just heard him pull in, Danielle.”
    “Will he be mad about my C?” Danielle said. The look in her eyes made Elizabeth wonder. She wanted to march out to the garage and tell Tony to affirm their daughter, say something positive, look at how full the glass was and not see the one little thing that was less than perfect.
    “I already told you, baby. Getting a C is not that bad. It’s okay.”
    She said it to convince not just Danielle, but also herself. Because she knew her husband wouldn’t feel the same.

Miss Clara

    Clara was in her war room, as she called it, when she got the distinct impression that her life was about to change. It was a sense that she was about to do something drastic, but she had no