The Sweet Spot by Laura Drake

arrangements, after. My brain worked slow, like a computer with
     a virus. I’d start to speak, but I’d hear a static hiss of white noise in my head,
     so I’d stop to listen. I could almost decipher a voice in the babble. Next thing I
     know, Jimmy’s shaking me, and his panicked look scared me more than the fact that
     I lost several minutes.”
    She waited, trying to squeeze the words past frozenvocal cords. “I didn’t want to go.” Acid splashed like a sheet of ice water in her
     gut. “To the funeral. It was as if the accident walled me off behind a barrier that
     only I could see. I didn’t know these people. Not anymore.”
    And that wasn’t the worst of it. “I sat there drugged, in the packed, too-hot church,
     hundreds of eyes crawling on my back. Jimmy sat beside me, holding my hand, tears
     sheeting down his face. I sat like a small rabbit, frozen in the knowledge that I’d
     have to face the yawning black hole that would swallow my baby.”
    Bella’s fingers spasmed in hers. But now that Char had started, she couldn’t seem
     to stop the truth gushing from her mouth.
    “I imagined myself breaking away from Jimmy, running to the flower-draped casket,
     tearing it open, and rescuing my Benje. After all, isn’t it a mother’s job to protect
     her child?” She turned her head away. She didn’t want to know Bella’s reaction. “I
     had to wait. The right time would present itself. I had to be ready.
    “My eyes jittered over the white roses covering the casket. The reverend’s monotone
     became a drone—like summer bees.”
    Her lungs had labored against the cloying smell of roses and smothering heat. A single
     white rose blurred, then came into perfect focus. A slight tinge of tan marred the
     edge of one petal, a glistening drop of moisture on another. She watched, rapt, as
     a small bee climbed from the center, its drone combining with the others, swelling,
     filling her head with a manic, reverberating hum. She’d clapped her hands over her
     ears and watched with horror as the bee crawled to the edge of the rose. Teetering
     on the edge, it looked right at her with an obscene, leering grin.
    “I woke up in my own bed twelve hours after the funeral.” Char dropped Bella’s hand
     and lifted her hair off her sticky neck, hoping for a breeze. “I’d passed out in the
     church.”
    Two shiny tracks ran down Bella’s smudged face. “You missed the graveside service.
     I’m so sorry.”
    Char shuddered. “I’m not.”

CHAPTER
9
    If you’re going through hell, keep going.
    —
Winston Churchill
    C har closed the mudroom door behind her. A chilly wind lifted her hair. She hesitated,
     hand on the knob. The setting sun spotlighted spectacular yellow-white thunderheads
     to the north. Purple-black ones roiled behind them, like a portent of evil. She considered
     exchanging her denim vest for something more substantial, but the remainder of the
     sky showed a vivid cerulean blue, and she didn’t smell rain in the air. Yet.
    Fumbling with the zipper, she trotted to the battered white ranch truck. It would
     only take a few minutes to drive to the pasture and dump the evening feed. It better
     not take longer; she’d left a pressure cooker full of red beans hissing on the stove.
     She opened the truck door and settled in, smiling, remembering Rosa and her father
     at the kitchen table, working a jigsaw puzzle.
    These past weeks, Rosa taught him to navigate the widening gaps in his memory and
     calmed him throughhis frustration. He looked forward to the nurse’s visits and accepted her help without
     protest. He quoted Rosa to Char daily, and every time, it bit with a ridiculous wasp-sting
     of jealousy. Char couldn’t dislike the nurse. Her gentle ways eased her into the current
     of their lives with barely a ripple. Char could now work outside, knowing her dad
     was safe and happy. But it came at a price; she missed being the only woman in her
     daddy’s life.
    “You are one