Never, ever; now and forever.

Chapter Two

The expectant mother who met Ronald James Williamson that afternoon was named Lucy Thompson (one day to be Lucy Holcomb, at least for a while), and when Ronnie laid hands upon her, this is what he Knew, completely and utterly:

She had been forced to leave state college one semester into her second year because her father had gotten laid off from the plant and her parents needed her help. Though the letter her mother sent wasn’t obvious in its manipulations, it nonetheless managed to push all the right guilt buttons. Two days after receiving it Lucy withdrew from school and used her last forty-five dollars to buy a bus ticket back to Cedar Hill. It was during the three-hour bus ride that she began to wonder about the price a person paid for so-called “selfless” acts. From the moment she’d stepped into the iron belly of the road lizard her throat had been expanding, then contracting at an alarming rate, finally forcing her to open the window next to her seat so she could breathe easier. Her chest was clogged with anger, sorrow, confusion, and, worst of all, pity. Everyone knew the plant was on its last leg, that the company had been looking for an excuse to pull up stakes ever since that labor riot a few years back, and when it happened, when the plant went down, so would the seven hundred jobs that formed the core of the town’s financial stability.

More than anything Lucy didn’t, dear God, didn’t want to end up like every other girl in town; under- to uneducated, with no dreams left, working nine hours a day in some bakery or laundry or grocery store, then coming home to a husband who didn’t much like her and children who didn’t much respect her, wearing a scarf around her head all the time to cover the premature gray hair, watching prime time soap operas and getting twelve pounds heavier with each passing year.

As she stepped off the bus she promised herself that, regardless of what eventually happened with the plant, she wouldn’t betray herself for anyone or anything. That alone was her hope.

“I thank God for a daughter like you,” said her father, embracing her as she stepped through the door. “Come on in and sit down and let your mother fix you up something to eat. It’s good to see you, hon. Here, I saved the want ads from the last couple days, maybe you’ll find something...”

She wound up taking a cashier job at the town’s only all-night grocery store. Lucy smiled at her late-night customers, and spoke with them, and tried to be cheery because there was nothing more depressing than to find yourself in a grocery store buying a loaf of bread at three-thirty in the morning in a town that was dying because the plant was going under and no one wanted to admit it.

Still, Lucy smiled at them with a warmth that she hoped would help, from a heart that was, if it could be said of anyone’s, truly good and sympathetic.