Chapter Thirty

Not wanting to cook and knowing that there wasn’t anything there to cook anyway, Kelleigh swung into one of her favorite places, an old fashioned drive-thru. To her relief, it was on the opposite side of town from the cemetery. Out of sight, her role has grieving widow was now complete. She relaxed and let her mind empty, waiting for the young waitress to bring out her meal. Before her mind could skip over to the events of the past 24 hours, the waitress appeared with her burger.

Kelleigh drove home, parked the truck up close to the garage again and went inside. She ate at the table, next to the textbook that she no longer needed. She had brought in her certificate and propped it up on the table where she could see it. She felt a sense of accomplishment that she hadn’t felt in a long time, if ever.

Finishing her meal, she found herself at loose ends. The sun was beginning to go down and she had nothing to do. Looking outside, over the patio she spotted the hot tub. “Perfect” she said aloud and turned to go change into her swimsuit.


Kelleigh sat back into the warm bubbles. She never wanted this hot tub; she felt it was an unnecessary extravagance. They had rarely used it once the shiny newness had worn off. Kelleigh could think of one hundred other ways she would have rather spent the money.
But after today, this long arduous day, she was thankful to relax into the bubbly nothingness with a glass of wine and quiet music. Today she was thankful for the extravagance.

The test had gone well. The expressions on the two men distributing the tests let her know that she had done better than they expected. The certificate showed that she knew just as much as Steve, in fact probably more as he had doubts as to whether or not he could pass the test.

Kelleigh relaxed back into the water, with her wineglass balanced on the edge of the tub. She rarely drank; in fact, she had to stop to pick up a bottle of wine on the way home. Steve kept beer in the house but she didn’t like it. Actually, Delly had drunk his last one on the night he died. But today, of all days, she wanted to just relax and attempt to forget her woes.

She was just drifting off when her cell phone rang. She jolted up, nearly spilling her wine glass. Blearily, she looked at the screen. To her relief, it wasn’t Delly. It wasn’t a number she recognized at all.

Tentatively, she answered it. After all that had transpired over the last four days, she just couldn’t guess what else could happen.

“How’d it go today?” She heard in response to her quiet “hello?”

She sighed and leaned back into the water. It was Eddie.
Kelleigh was surprised at how happy she felt hearing his voice.
“It went really, really well. Considering the day.”

“You’re okay then?”