What's Done In the Dark by Reshonda Tate Billingsley Page A

again.
    “She’s not,” Fran reiterated.
    “Honey, I know you’re not a criminal,” Mavis said, reaching out to cover my hand. “But this whole cover-up is criminal, and even if leaving him there wasn’t criminally wrong, it was morally wrong. Being there with him was morally wrong!”
    “Okay, and so what do you want her to do about it now?” Fran said. “Seriously, she made a mistake. In your perfect world, she should just go tell her husband, tell Paula, tell the police. Then they’ll all pray on it, forgive her, and let her go on her merry little way, right?” Fran tsked in disgust as she fell back on the sofa. “You and that fantasyland you live indrive me crazy.”
    Mavis ignored her and continued talking to me. “Fefe,” she said, calling me by the nickname my mom used to call me whenever I was in trouble, “I know that you didn’t mean for this to come out the way it did. I just am worried because I don’t want this to blow up in your face. And my gut is telling me that’s exactly what’s going to happen.”
    “What do you suggest I do?” I said. Her words were really starting to get to me.
    “A web of lies eventually gets tangled,” she replied. “As difficult as it is, come clean.”
    Fran jumped up like she could tell Mavis was getting through to me and she needed to nip this in the bud right away. “And say what? ‘Hey, Paula, I know I helped you through the funeral and let you cry on my shoulder and everything, but I was with your husband the night he died. We were getting it on, and it must’ve sent his heart into overdrive, but if it makes you feel better, he died feeling good.’ Really, Mavis? Is that what she should do?”
    Mavis sighed like that sounded ridiculous even to her.
    “I just know right is right,” Mavis muttered.
    “All I’m saying,” Fran continued, turning her attention to me, “is you have to pull it together and keep it together. That’s all you have to do.”
    “And what’s going to happen when the guilt keeps eating at her?” Mavis pointed my way. “Because I can see that it already has.”
    At that moment, I caught my reflection in Fran’s ceiling-to-floor mirror. I looked a hot mess. I had on a pair of tattered leggings and a long, dingy T-shirt with a hole in the front that I hadn’t noticed until I was in my car and on my way over here. My hair actually looked like it hadn’t been combedin a couple of days. I had no makeup on. My lips felt dry and crusty, and my eyes were swollen because I’d cried the whole way over here.
    “That’s what she’s going to work on,” Fran said. She ran her eyes up and down my body. “And she will never, ever, ever wear that outfit again, looking like she’s going to work on a Habitat for Humanity project.”
    I hated that they were talking about me as if I wasn’t there, but they both were right. I needed to keep it together, and I needed to come clean. But I knew if I came clean, I would lose everything. Greg would not forgive me. Shoot, his mother had pawned him off on a relative when he was eleven, returned two years later, and spent the next twenty-five years trying to get him to forgive her. To this day, Greg refused to have anything to do with his mother. And Paula, if she didn’t try to kill me, she’d never forgive me either. Then I thought about Tahiry and how much I loved her and how close she and Liz were. My betrayal would kill them both.
    No, I decided, there was no way I was coming clean. I needed to learn to get over what I’d done. I’d asked God for forgiveness, and I meant it from the bottom of my heart, so I hoped that He forgave me. Now I just needed to figure out how to forgive myself and pray that it was enough to help memove on.

20
    Paula
    THANK GOD FOR FELISE . THAT’S all I could think as I watched her straighten Mason’s little tie. I don’t know how I would’ve made it these last few days if Felise hadn’t taken part of the load. At first, I was a little worried. She