“Hogwash! Spit it out. I know when something is bothering you. You ain’t been this distressed-looking since we was in jail.” I massaged his shoulder and softened my tone. “Sugar, did Queen of Sheba say something to upset you?”

Milton blew out some air and gave me a weak nod. “You could say that.”

I folded my arms and squinted. “What did she say this time?”

He nodded toward the living room. “Let’s go in there and get Willie Frank. We all need to talk.”

“Well, he was fixing to leave, so we better go stop him.” We dashed back to the living room, but it was too late. Willie Frank had already left. I looked out the front window and seen him and Sweet Sue getting in his truck. “He’ll be back tomorrow. The three of us can conversate then. In the meantime, don’t you want to discuss it with me?”

“Naw,” he snarled. “Now leave me be.”

I straggled back into the crowd and practically had to force myself to act normal.

When our last guest left, Milton immediately went to bed. I didn’t want to deal with his bleak mood. I decided to lag behind and clean up some of the mess our guests had made. I took my time, hoping he’d be asleep when I got to the bedroom. When I got there half a hour later, he was laying on his back staring up at the ceiling.

I was so exasperated by now, I stomped across the floor and stopped by his side of the bed with my hands on my hips. “Milton, whatever Joyce said must have been pretty bad for you to be looking so miserable. Now I ain’t going to let you go to sleep until I know what she said.”

“Yvonne, put on your nightgown and get in this bed. I don’t want to talk about that yet. Besides, I could be wrong. If I am, I’d rather you didn’t know what she said.” Milton turned his face to the wall. When I got in the bed and snuggled up to him, he felt like a log.

“Sugar, remember what we talked about last night?” I said in the sexiest tone I could manage. I thought it would soften him up.

Me cooing like a dove didn’t work. When he responded, his voice was so harsh you would have thought he was talking to somebody who had swiped his wallet. “We talked about a mess of things.”

“I mean when we was in bed. You asked if we could make love tonight. I told you we could . . .”

“Not tonight, baby. Now let me get some sleep.”