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Back Ladies of the House
Chapters (59)
  1. Cover
  2. About the Author
  3. Praise
  4. Dedication
  5. Epigraph
  6. January
  7. One
  8. Two
  9. Three
  10. Four
  11. Five
  12. February
  13. Six
  14. Seven
  15. Eight
  16. Nine
  17. Ten
  18. Eleven
  19. Twelve
  20. March
  21. Thirteen
  22. Fourteen
  23. Fifteen
  24. Sixteen
  25. April
  26. Seventeen
  27. Eighteen
  28. Nineteen
  29. Twenty
  30. Twenty-One
  31. Twenty-Two
  32. Twenty-Three
  33. Twenty-Four
  34. Twenty-Five
  35. May
  36. Twenty-Six
  37. Twenty-Seven
  38. Twenty-Eight
  39. Twenty-Nine
  40. Thirty
  41. Thirty-One
  42. June
  43. Thirty-Two
  44. Thirty-Three
  45. Thirty-Four
  46. Thirty-Five
  47. Thirty-Six
  48. Thirty-Seven
  49. Thirty-Eight
  50. Thirty-Nine
  51. Forty
  52. July
  53. Forty-One
  54. Epilogue
  55. Acknowledgments
  56. Author’s Note
  57. Ladies of the House - Reader’s Guide
  58. Questions For Discussion
  59. Excerpt

“Blake told his mother how serious we are last week. It did not go well.” Wallis sniffed, wiped her nose with the sleeve of her sweater. “And, I don’t know if this is a coincidence or not, but his mother’s chief of staff in the Charleston office quit, and she wants Blake to fill in while a replacement is found. It’s going to be, like, weeks.” I noted here this word—weeks. Minutes ago, Blake had said it would be months.

“Wallis, my love.” I moved past my mother, sat down next to Wallis on the bed, rubbed her arm. “I’m so sorry.”

Wallis, embittered, laughed. Or maybe it was a groan. “I had convinced myself his mother’s approval wouldn’t matter to him.”

“I would expect for this to be hard for him. I know his family is important to him, even if he doesn’t agree with them a lot of the time.”

She looked at me with swollen eyes. “I don’t need an explanation, Dodo.”

Cricket handed Wallis a tissue from the box on her side table. Wallis took it, blew, and commenced staring at her phone.

“I’m sorry,” I offered. I turned on her floor lamp—it was the best I could do—and withdrew silently to the living room with Cricket.

Wallis usually cooked for us on Sunday evenings. She’d been into ancient grains recently, and fish prepared a dozen different ways, including shrimp and okra stew that had made Blake euphoric. I doubted Wallis would be in the mood tonight. I ordered pizza. When I’d hung up, Cricket busied herself getting comfortable next to me on the couch.

“I’ve thought it through,” she announced. “This Blake thing.”

I couldn’t help laughing dryly, as it had been less than twenty minutes since he’d sped off like he’d just robbed us blind.

Cricket continued, “It seems clear as day to me. Melinda Darley’s hoping, no doubt, that distance will dull Blake’s love for Wallis, and that the whole relationship will suffer because of it. It is deliberate sabotage. There you have it. It makes sense, no?” I didn’t challenge this; she’d summed it up remarkably well. Cricket nodded to herself. “Think, Daisy, about how he acted. He was haggard. Did you see how he was? Just awful. I have to believe this is a guy who was not acting on his own free will.”