I had slept peacefully, not having to listen for Momma calling me in the night. I was feeling pretty good at first when I turned over in bed and woke up. But as I became fully conscious, I remembered I was irked with Leslie. Why did she always want to make me feel so awkward? What was the matter with her? What was the matter with me for listening to her? Probably a lot. But to be honest, I carried around a nagging feeling inside, like I was still waiting for my real life to begin. Meanwhile, here I was, thirty, with no real career or prospects of one, even though I had that sweet degree in elementary education and was on a wait list for the island elementary school. I was living in limbo, not a thoroughly unpleasant state, but not a very satisfying one, either. In the meanwhile, I told myself as I brushed the tangles of night from my hair, I would continue to do the few things that time allowed me to do and that I liked to do. And maybe I should get another kind of job. Something part-time. Anything that would get me out of the house. I could hire someone to sit with Momma or to check on her a few times a day. It would be good for me. I knew she would scream her head off if I went to work anywhere out of earshot. Maybe if I did, she would regroup and stop pretending to be sick all the time. And hellfire, she didn’t own me. The thought of breaking out was so delicious, I could already taste my freedom.

It was a beautiful morning, not as warm as yesterday had been, and I thought that was good. After my favorite breakfast parfait of yogurt, fruit, granola, and my own honey, I dressed and went outside with a big mug of steaming hot coffee. The yard was saturated with heavy dew that would surely evaporate as the sun began its daily climb. By midday, people would be shedding their light jackets and sweaters, but by five they’d be reaching for them again: classic Lowcountry weather.

Archie’s car was gone, which meant he had taken the boys to school and then probably gone downtown to the college. I thought about him, wondering what it must have been like to study religion at a place like Harvard, and then to spend your life considering the objects and rituals and beliefs that people held sacred. I had loved our discussion about cargo cults.