Green Lake by S.K. Epperson Page A

They took all the love she had to give and gave it all back to her, something Ronnie would never come close to experiencing, let alone understanding. He was incapable of feeling love for anything. All he wanted out of life was food, shelter, free money, and someone to hit.
    That someone wasn't going to be her anymore, Sheila told herself. The filthy, disgusting animal wasn't going to get near her or her two other little girls. Let him go back to live with his mother and knock her around again. She was used to putting up with it. She had put up with it from Ronnie's dad, and then from Ronnie's older brother, and then from Ronnie. She did everything she was told and never argued. If anyone asked, she thought her boys were the most wonderful men ever to walk the earth. There were none better.
    They were all sick, Sheila told herself.
    All of them but her. After the funeral tomorrow, she was getting away. She was leaving and going to one of the other shelters who had offered help. Maybe they would help her get a GED so she could try and get a job somewhere. She could live in low-income housing and take a bus to work. She and the girls would get on all right without Ronnie. They might even do better, looking at the way things had gone for them so far. Sheila had never felt right about taking things from other folks. Her own mother was dumb as dirt and twice as poor, but she never took nothing from no one. She waitressed and carhopped and worked from the time she was fifteen, and there were plenty of times she could have applied for welfare and gotten it, but she never did.
    Sheila wasn't going to apply for it if she didn't have to, but she would wait and see how things worked out. The people in the shelter were really understanding and helpful and easy to talk to about such things. They understood when women feared the men they lived with, but feared going it alone even worse. But this thing with Kayla, this thing with her poor, dead baby was all she needed to get her mind made up. She had to get away from him. He was bad and he always had been bad and he wasn't going to be getting better anytime soon. All she needed for tomorrow was to line up some transportation for her and the girls. Then she would be gone, and Ronnie and all his lying, scheming, and cheating people by crying on television would be behind her.

 
     
     
    CHAPTER TEN
     
     
    “He declined,” said Manuel in answer to his wife's question about whether Eris Renard would be joining them for dinner.
    Madeleine had known he would, but still her limbs stiffened.
    Jacqueline glanced at her before continuing to mix a blender full of daiquiris.
    “I forgot to mention it earlier, Madeleine, but your in-laws called me Thursday evening. They wanted to know where you were and how you're getting along. I said you were at our cabin, but I didn't say where. They wanted to know if you needed any money.”
    Her head lifted sharply, and Madeleine stared at her sister. “What?”
    “His mother admitted how insensitive they were after Sam's suicide. They blame it on shock. Now they realize everything you said was true, and they want to try to make it up to you.”
    “Bullshit,” said Madeleine, and Manuel frowned at her in disapproval.
    Jacqueline's look was patient. “I told them I would speak to you. If you wanted to contact them, you would.”
    “I don't want to.”
    “I thought as much.”
    “Can you blame me?” Madeleine asked, her temper flaring.
    “They practically accused me of murdering their son. How do you expect me to feel?”
    “Just as you do,” Jacqueline soothed. “Forget I mentioned it.” She turned to Manuel then said, “Madeleine took me over to meet her new friends today.”
    “The children you mentioned last night?”
    “Yes,” said Madeleine, relaxing somewhat. “We had a good afternoon.”
    “I got to call bingo,” said Jacqueline, pretending to preen. “And I was very good.”
    Manuel smiled at her and reached down to hand a scrap of