and piece of paper. When she finished, and came back to him, she was—what was the word? Fulfilled? Satisfied? More than that. Reassured. Convinced that she was worth the space she occupied on the planet, that she was using what she knew and what she felt and what she intuited and what she was to justify her existence.
He simply didn’t understand how anyone could resent that. How anyone could not watch it happen, and smile, and enjoy the creation and the happiness and the peace it gave.
This woman wanted her husband’s only happiness, his only satisfaction and reassurance and sense of worth, to come from her. It was bewildering, Lachlan reflected, how some people were bound and determined to make themselves unhappy by wanting something impossible to have.
What a misery her life must be, he thought, then practically sang aloud with gratitude as Troy approached with soft drinks. Evan ended the conversation with, “Well, the thing of it is that when she does come back, she’s all mellowed out. They’re her books, after all. She gets to win all the arguments. ’Scuse me, Erika, I should go rescue her from an argument she can’t win—she’s over there talking to Reverend Wilkens again.”
Six
“I DON’T KNOW why you do that to yourself.”
Holly gave Lachlan exactly the look he’d expected: narrow-eyed, sidelong, and one spark away from furious. She was, at times—not often, but at times—comfortingly predictable.
He’d removed her from Reverend Wilkens’s vicinity and guided her toward the bar, and now told Laura, “Two vodkas on ice, one with a twist, one with olives,” before propping his elbows on polished oak and regarding his fulminating wife sidelong with an amusement he knew better than to show.
“What, exactly, is it that I do?” Holly asked through gritted teeth. “Stand up for what I believe?”
“Argue with people whose minds are never gonna change.” He accepted the vodkas from Laura, gave her a generous tip and a wink, and handed Holly her drink. “You stand up, yeah—but against somebody who isn’t playing by the same rules you are. You’re on completely different battlefields, lobbing shots at each other that will never hit anything.”
Nudging her with an elbow, he coaxed her toward a side door near a grand piano. A faraway crack of thunder echoed off the hills and hollows, and the wind had picked up in the last hour; he hoped the noise wouldn’t wake the twins, and that he’d managed to nail down that loose shutter at Lulah’s.
“I feel just as passionately about it as the Reverend does,” Holly said.
“But you get there by a completely different process. He hears ‘abortion’ and sees a dead fetus. You hear ‘abortion’ and see a living woman. He takes the side of—what do they call it? Oh, yeah—the ‘pre-born.’ You’re on the side of the already alive. The individual matters to both of you, but with him it’s an abstract concept and with you it’s the reality of a living, breathing person.”
“He wouldn’t call it an abstract concept.”
“He can’t look it in the eyes, can he? I think it’s a whole lot easier to care about a human zygote than it is to care about a human being who can actually look you in the eye when she’s talking about how her own father messed with her since she was ten, or that she’s had six kids and her body can’t survive another one, or when her boyfriend found out she was pregnant he disappeared into the wild blue yonder, or—” He broke off. “I see you get my drift.”
“You say you don’t know why I always argue with people like him—I don’t understand why you never argue with people like him!” She sipped vodka and crunched an ice cube, then said, “And ‘zygote’ is a pretty fancy word, Sheriff.”
“Intellectual snob,” he accused, grinning down at her. “You want the truth?”
“I’m assuming this truth will have about the same relationship to the real truth as every story you’ve ever
He simply didn’t understand how anyone could resent that. How anyone could not watch it happen, and smile, and enjoy the creation and the happiness and the peace it gave.
This woman wanted her husband’s only happiness, his only satisfaction and reassurance and sense of worth, to come from her. It was bewildering, Lachlan reflected, how some people were bound and determined to make themselves unhappy by wanting something impossible to have.
What a misery her life must be, he thought, then practically sang aloud with gratitude as Troy approached with soft drinks. Evan ended the conversation with, “Well, the thing of it is that when she does come back, she’s all mellowed out. They’re her books, after all. She gets to win all the arguments. ’Scuse me, Erika, I should go rescue her from an argument she can’t win—she’s over there talking to Reverend Wilkens again.”
Six
“I DON’T KNOW why you do that to yourself.”
Holly gave Lachlan exactly the look he’d expected: narrow-eyed, sidelong, and one spark away from furious. She was, at times—not often, but at times—comfortingly predictable.
He’d removed her from Reverend Wilkens’s vicinity and guided her toward the bar, and now told Laura, “Two vodkas on ice, one with a twist, one with olives,” before propping his elbows on polished oak and regarding his fulminating wife sidelong with an amusement he knew better than to show.
“What, exactly, is it that I do?” Holly asked through gritted teeth. “Stand up for what I believe?”
“Argue with people whose minds are never gonna change.” He accepted the vodkas from Laura, gave her a generous tip and a wink, and handed Holly her drink. “You stand up, yeah—but against somebody who isn’t playing by the same rules you are. You’re on completely different battlefields, lobbing shots at each other that will never hit anything.”
Nudging her with an elbow, he coaxed her toward a side door near a grand piano. A faraway crack of thunder echoed off the hills and hollows, and the wind had picked up in the last hour; he hoped the noise wouldn’t wake the twins, and that he’d managed to nail down that loose shutter at Lulah’s.
“I feel just as passionately about it as the Reverend does,” Holly said.
“But you get there by a completely different process. He hears ‘abortion’ and sees a dead fetus. You hear ‘abortion’ and see a living woman. He takes the side of—what do they call it? Oh, yeah—the ‘pre-born.’ You’re on the side of the already alive. The individual matters to both of you, but with him it’s an abstract concept and with you it’s the reality of a living, breathing person.”
“He wouldn’t call it an abstract concept.”
“He can’t look it in the eyes, can he? I think it’s a whole lot easier to care about a human zygote than it is to care about a human being who can actually look you in the eye when she’s talking about how her own father messed with her since she was ten, or that she’s had six kids and her body can’t survive another one, or when her boyfriend found out she was pregnant he disappeared into the wild blue yonder, or—” He broke off. “I see you get my drift.”
“You say you don’t know why I always argue with people like him—I don’t understand why you never argue with people like him!” She sipped vodka and crunched an ice cube, then said, “And ‘zygote’ is a pretty fancy word, Sheriff.”
“Intellectual snob,” he accused, grinning down at her. “You want the truth?”
“I’m assuming this truth will have about the same relationship to the real truth as every story you’ve ever
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