The late-afternoon shadows lengthened. She had no food left, and she couldn't postpone the trip into town any longer. With Edward at her side, she walked along the highway until they had left the drive-in behind, then she stuck out her thumb as a late-model Park Avenue approached.
It was driven by a retired couple from St. Petersburg who were summering in Salvation. They chatted pleasantly with her and were sweet to Edward. She asked them to drop her off at the Ingles grocery store on the edge of town, and they waved as they drove off. She was thankful they hadn't recognized her as the infamous Widow Snopes.
Her luck didn't hold, however. She'd only been in the grocery store for a few moments when she noticed one of the produce clerks staring at her. She concentrated on choosing a pear that wasn't overly bruised from the mark-down rack. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a gray-haired woman whispering to her husband.
Rachel had changed so much that she wasn't recognized as often now as she had been in the first year after the scandal, but this was Salvation, and these people had seen her in person, not just on the television screen. Even without her teased hair and spindly high heels, they knew who she was. Swiftly she moved on.
In the bread aisle, a neatly dressed woman in her mid-forties with severely cut dyed black hair put down a pack of Thomas' English muffins and stared at Rachel as if she were looking at the devil.
"You." She spat out the word.
Rachel remembered Carol Dennis immediately. She had begun as a Temple volunteer and eventually worked her way to the top, ending up as one of the cadre of loyal followers who served as aides to Dwayne. Deeply religious, Carol had both adored and been intensely protective of him.
When his troubles had become public, Carol had never been able to accept the fact that a man who preached the Gospel as passionately as G. Dwayne Snopes was corrupt, so she shifted the blame for his downfall to Rachel.
She was almost unnaturally thin, with a sharp nose and pointed chin. Her eyes were, as dark as her dyed hair, her skin flawless and pale. "I can't believe you've come back."
"It's a free country," Rachel snapped.
"How can you show your face here?"
Her defiance faded. She handed Edward a small loaf of whole-wheat bread. "Would you carry this for me?" She began to move on.
The woman noticed Edward, and her face softened. She stepped forward and bent toward him. "I haven't seen you since you were a baby. What a nice-looking young man you are. I'll bet you miss your daddy."
Edward had been accosted by strangers before, and he didn't like it. He ducked his head.
Rachel tried to get by, but Carol quickly angled her cart to block the aisle. "God tells us we should love the sinner and hate the sin, but it's difficult in your case."
"I'm sure you'll manage, Carol, a devout woman like yourself."
"You'll never know how many times I've prayed for you."
"Save your prayers for someone who wants them."
"You're not welcome here, Rachel. A lot of us gave our lives to the Temple. We believed, and we've suffered in ways you could never understand. Our memories are long, and if you think we'll stand by and let you flaunt yourself here, you're very wrong."
Rachel knew it was a mistake to reply, but she couldn't help defending herself. "I believed, too. None of you have ever understood that."
"You believed in yourself, in your own needs."
"You know nothing about me."
"If you showed any remorse, all of us could forgive you, but you still don't have any shame, do you, Rachel?"
"I have nothing to be ashamed about."
"He confessed his sins, but you never would. Your husband was a man of God, and you ruined him."
"Dwayne ruined himself." She pushed the cart out of the way, and nudged Edward forward.
Before she could get away, however, a teenage boy came slouching around the end of the aisle holding several bags of potato chips and a six-pack of Mountain Dew. He was slightly built, with an unkempt dirty-blond crew cut and three earrings. His jeans were baggy, and a rumpled blue shirt hung open over a black T-shirt. He came to a stop as he saw Rachel. For a moment his face was blank, and then his expression hardened with hostility.
"What's she doing here?"
"Rachel's come back to Salvation," Carol said coldly.
Rachel remembered that Carol was divorced and had a son, but she would never have recognized this boy as the quiet, conservative-looking child she vaguely recalled.
The teenager stared at her. He hardly looked like a model of religious devotion, and she couldn't understand such naked animosity.
She quickly turned away and discovered she was shaking as she headed into the next aisle. Before she'd gone far, she heard Carol's angry voice. "I'm not buying all that junk food for you."
"I'll buy it myself!"
"No, you won't. And you're not going out with those loser friends of yours tonight, either."
"We're just going to a movie, and you can't stop me."
"Don't you lie to me, Bobby! You had liquor on your breath the last time you came home. I know exactly what you and your friends are doing!"
"You don't know shit."
Edward looked up at Rachel, his eyes startled. "Is she that boy's mom?"
Rachel nodded and hurried him to the end of the aisle. "Don't they love each other?"
"I'm sure they do. But they've got problems, pup."
As she finished her shopping, she was conscious of the attention she was attracting, which ranged from puzzled glances to condemning murmurs. Even though she'd expected animosity, the extent of it upset her. Three years might have passed, but the people of Salvation, North Carolina, hadn't forgiven a thing.
As she and Edward walked along the highway carrying their small supply of food, she tried to understand Bobby Dennis's reaction to her. He and his mother were clearly at odds, so she doubted that he was simply reflecting Carol's feelings. Besides, his antipathy had seemed more personal.
She stopped thinking about Bobby as she spotted a large grandpa car with Florida plates, the only kind she dared stick her thumb out for. A widow from Clearwater driving a maroon Crown Victoria stopped and took them back to the drive-in. As Rachel stepped out of the car, she turned her foot and the frail straps on the right sandal snapped. The sandals were beyond repair, and now she had only one pair of shoes left. Another loss.
Edward fell asleep just before nine o'clock. She sat barefoot on the trunk of the Impala with an old beach towel wrapped around her shoulders and gazed down at the crumpled magazine photo that had brought her back. She carefully unfolded it and, flicking on the flashlight she carried with her, looked down into the face of Gabe's older brother, Cal.
Although they bore a strong resemblance, Cal's rugged features had been softened by an almost goofy look of happiness, and she wondered if his wife, the attractive, rather scholarly-looking blond pictured smiling at his side, was responsible. They'd been photographed in Rachel's old house, a vast, overly ornate mansion on the other side of Salvation. It had been confiscated by the federal government to help cover Dwayne's unpaid taxes, and it had stood vacant until Cal had bought it and its contents when he was married.
The picture had been taken in Dwayne's former study, but it wasn't sentimentality that had made her rip it from the magazine. Instead, it was the object she'd spotted in the background of the photograph. Sitting on the bookcases directly behind Cal Bonner's head was a small, brass-bound leather chest, barely the size of half a loaf of bread.
Dwayne had bought the chest about three and a half years ago from a dealer who kept her husband's expensive purchases anonymous. Dwayne had coveted it because it had once belonged to John F. Kennedy-not that Dwayne had been a Kennedy fan, but he loved everything associated with the rich and famous. In the weeks before his death, as the legal net had tightened around him, she'd frequently seen Dwayne gazing at the chest.