The Color Of Light. Emilie Richards
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Shiloh was small-boned like their father, and showed no signs of growing taller than the five foot three she had reached a year ago at thirteen. Even at nine Dougie was broad-shouldered and broad-chested, and he was already just inches shorter than his sister. He was going to be big, like his uncles, Belle’s hulking brothers, and like them he would need to be. Because Dougie’s greatest talent was getting into trouble.
“We’re going to stay here tonight,” Shiloh told him, because Man said nothing. “Can you help Daddy put up the tent where nobody can see it? I’m going to get Mama some medicine and all of us some food.”
“What kind of food?”
“Tacos.”
Dougie looked interested. He was always hungry, just like Belle, only he was growing up, not out like their mother. “I want a lot.”
“I’ll get as much as I can, but you have to help here.”
Dougie was a pain, but most of the time he was good-natured. He shrugged.
Belle coughed again, and Dougie went up the steps to sit beside her. Her arm crept around him, and she pulled him close as she covered her mouth with her other hand.
“Daddy, it’s the best thing,” Shiloh said. “You can see that, right?”
Man didn’t smile and he didn’t nod. He shrank into himself even more, as if this was indeed a new low in a recent history replete with them.
“I’ll be back as fast as I can,” she said. “We’ll eat, then maybe wash up a little inside, and then we can go to sleep until morning. That’s a school back there, but tomorrow’s Saturday. Things will look brighter then.”
Belle spoke at last. “You go on now. We’ll wait.”
Shiloh managed not to roll her eyes. Of course they would wait. What else were they going to do? Belle didn’t seem to grasp their situation, but that wasn’t unusual. She made a point of not trying to understand anything new although everything about their lives was new and unpredictable. Somewhere on the road from Ohio Shiloh’s mother had simply shut down and turned over everything to Man and Shiloh.
And these days Man had to struggle not to simply opt out and shut down himself.
Tonight everything was up to Shiloh. No decisions would be made without her leadership. “You’ll get everything ready while I’m gone?” she asked her father.
He gave one nod, like a man agreeing it was time to walk the plank.
For just a moment Shiloh wondered what life would be like if she didn’t return, if she kept walking after she fed herself at Taco Bell and set out to make a life away from them. Would her mother or father look for her? Without her to take charge would they simply fade away? Or would one or the other of her parents begin to take care of the family again and find a way to make everything right?
She didn’t know the answer. The only thing she did know was that the risk of finding a new life alone was too great. She had to keep struggling, because right now she was the only Fowler still capable of doing so.
“YOU’RE QUIETER THAN USUAL.” Ethan touched Analiese’s hand across the restaurant table, just a brief pat. “We can cancel our order, and you can go home and put your feet up for the night.”
Instead Analiese made herself more comfortable in her chair in the dark corner of the Biltmore Village cantina. “I’m as hungry as I’m tired. And besides, even if I’m not chattering away, I’m still grateful for your company.”
“You ordered a salad. That doesn’t sound hungry to me.”
Analiese toyed with her fork and imagined, just for a moment, pasta dripping with Alfredo sauce twined around it. “A big salad.”
“With dressing on the side and no avocados. In a southwestern restaurant yet.”
She laughed and met his eyes. “If I start indulging myself every time I have a bad day, I’ll swell up like a puffer fish. You have no idea how fast I can gain weight.”
“How do you know? When was the last time you gained even a pound?”
She was a maniac about her weight, but Analiese had faced that and forgiven herself. “I’m healthy. I don’t have an eating disorder. Being on camera taught me to stay away from foods that encourage me to binge. Like pizza, and fried chicken.” She smiled. “And avocados.”
“Not lettuce, apparently.”
She knew he was teasing, because the salad had wonderful things in it. Black beans, queso fresco and chicken breast.
“I’m drinking a glass of wine.” She held up her glass.
“When you really wanted a margarita.”
“How could you tell?”
“By how quickly you ran over the server when she tried to describe all the possibilities. You didn’t want to hear them.”
“Is that why you got wine, too?”
“I got wine because that’s what I wanted.”
She abruptly ran out of small talk. Now that she had reassured him, she knew she could sit quietly with Ethan for the rest of the evening and both of them would be perfectly comfortable. But she didn’t want to be quiet. She decided to tell him what was really on her mind.
“It’s not just that today was an unusually bad day of ministry...”
“Let’s not forget being knocked to the ground by someone you wanted to help.”
“That, too. But actually that’s what I’ve been playing over and over in my mind.” She sipped her wine and thought about what to say and what not to.
He filled in the gap. “An attack like that would upset anybody, but you did everything right. Except maybe believing anybody that drunk could be reasonable.”
“I haven’t been thinking about the man who pushed me. I’ve been wondering about the one who helped me off the ground. Or at least the man I thought he was. For a moment, at least.”
She could see that Ethan didn’t understand, but why should he? She wasn’t being purposely obtuse; she was just trying to find a way into the story.
She started again. “The crowd surged in around me. For a moment I thought I was going to be run over.”
“You nearly were.”
“I saw a hand extended so I grabbed it. A man helped me up. The crowd pressed in, and I only got a glimpse of him. Before I could say anything he was swallowed by people, and by the time I got away, he was gone.”
“Are you worried because you didn’t have a chance to thank him?”
“I’m sure he wasn’t expecting anything. Not under those circumstances. The thing is...” She took another sip. “I thought he was someone I knew, someone I haven’t seen in a long time. I was almost certain, but it makes no sense, not really. Because I can’t imagine why he would be in Asheville.”
“But if it was somebody who knows you, wouldn’t he have stayed to say hello?”
“You would think so.” She realized she was toying with her wineglass, rolling it back and forth between her palms the way her mother used to roll dough for the sweet rolls she had made nearly every day of Analiese’s childhood. She set it down before she spoke again. “Did I ever tell you how I came to be a minister?”
“Just that it wasn’t your original career choice. I know you started in television news.”
“I actually started in theater, but along the way I found television and switched my major. I got married right out of college. Greg was a producer at a local network affiliate, and I did my