“I might have voiced it, but you were thinkin’ it. Lyle wasn’t much of a man to tell Jody about his affair and marriage on the phone. If you ever have a feller like that, I’ll kill him and drag his body down Main Street behind my old pickup truck,” Fanny Lou whispered. “I’m tempted to go out there and do it to Lyle.”

“And I’ll help you.” Mitzi’s father, Harry, motioned toward the side door. “Let’s take our chances on not dying this week and skip shaking the preacher’s hand. Whoever gets to the café first should save a table for the five of us.”

“Granny, you want to ride with me? Jody came with Paula this morning,” Mitzi said.

“I was just about to suggest that. Then afterwards you can bring me back here to get my truck,” Fanny Lou answered.

As soon as the van doors were closed, Fanny Lou started firing questions. “So how long do you think this affair was going on? Was he sleeping with both women? Is there a chance that Jody is pregnant, too? Now wouldn’t that be horrible.”

“He’s been cheatin’ on her for about six months,” Mitzi answered. “I don’t know if she’s pregnant, but Jody confided in us years ago when we were still young that she has a fear that she’ll be a bad mother like Wanda. So that’s probably why they didn’t have children.” Mitzi sent up a silent prayer for Jody to not be pregnant, even though she hadn’t been on birth control. That would be too much of a burden for anyone, even her strong-willed friend, to carry.

“Jody is nothing like her mother,” Fanny Lou argued. “She’d make a great mama if and when she ever decides to have children, but I hope she’s not expecting a baby now. That wouldn’t be a bit fair to her, to have to raise up a child to a man who broke her heart.”

Mitzi drove from the church straight downtown and groaned when she saw how many cars were parked on Main Street. “We’re going to have at least a thirty-minute wait,” she fussed as she parked a block away from the Celeste Café.

“I should’ve slipped out before the benediction and saved us a table,” Fanny Lou said. “But I wasn’t about to leave you to deal with Wanda alone. I could see she was fuming all through church.”

“How? She sat behind us.” Mitzi unbuckled her seat belt.

“I kept a watch on her out of the corner of my eye,” Fanny Lou said. “She came loaded for bear and someone was going to get it.”