Indelible by Karin Slaughter Page B

part—the more compassionate part—understood that this was the way her mother coped with her fears.
    Sara looked at her watch, praying that Jeffrey would show up on time and take her away from all of this. He was seldom late, which was one of the many things she liked about him. For all of Cathy’s talk about what a cad Jeffrey Tolliver was, he carried a handkerchief in his back pocket and always opened the door for her. When Sara got up from the table at a restaurant, he stood, too. He helped her with her coat and carried her briefcase when they walked down the street. As if all of this was not enough, he was so good in bed that their first time together she had nearly cracked her back molars clamping her teeth together so that she would not scream his name.
    â€œSara?” Cathy knocked on the door, her voice filled with concern. “Are you okay, honey?”
    Sara flushed the toilet and ran water in the sink. She opened the door to find her sister and mother both staring at her with the same worried expression.
    Cathy held up a red blouse. “I don’t think this is a good color for you.”
    â€œThanks.” Sara took the shirt and tossed it into the laundry basket. She knelt back down by thebooks, wondering if she should take the literary authors to impress Jeffrey or the more commercial ones that she knew she would enjoy.
    â€œI don’t even know why you’re going to the beach,” Cathy said. “All you’ve ever done is burn. Do you have enough sunscreen?”
    Without turning around, Sara held up the neon green bottle of Tropical Sunblock.
    â€œYou know how easily you freckle. And your legs are so white. I don’t know that I’d wear shorts with legs like that.”
    Tessa chuckled. “What was that girl’s name in Gidget who wore the big hat on the beach?”
    Sara gave her sister a “you’re not helping” look. Tessa pointed to the bag of biscuits, then to her mouth, indicating her silence could be bought.
    â€œLarue,” Sara told her, moving the bag farther away.
    â€œTessie,” Cathy said. “Run fetch me the ironing board.” She asked Sara, “You do have an iron?”
    Sara felt the heat from her mother’s stare. “In the pantry.”
    Cathy clicked her tongue as Tessa left. She asked Sara, “When did you wash these?”
    â€œYesterday.”
    â€œIf you’d ironed them then—”
    â€œYes, and if I didn’t wear clothes at all, I’d never have to worry about it.”
    â€œThat’s the same thing you told me when you were six.”
    Sara waited.
    â€œIf I’d left it up to you, you’d’ve gone to school naked.”
    Sara absently thumbed through a book, not seeing the pages. Behind her, she could hear her mother snapping out shirts and refolding them.
    Cathy said, “If this was Tessa, I wouldn’t be worried at all. As a matter of fact,” she gave a low laugh, smoothing out another shirt, “I’d be worried about Jeffrey.”
    Sara put a paperback with a bloody knife slash down the cover in the “take” pile.
    â€œJeffrey Tolliver is the sort of man who has had a lot of experience. A lot more than you, and I see that smile on your lips, young lady. You’d best realize I’m not just talking about the stuff going on between the sheets.”
    Sara picked up another paperback. “I really don’t want to have this conversation with my mother.”
    â€œYour mother is probably the only woman on earth who will tell you this,” Cathy said. She sat on the bed and waited for Sara to turn around. “Men like Jeffrey only want one thing.” Sara opened her mouth, but her mother wasn’t finished. “It’s okay if you give them that thing as long as you get something back out of it.”
    â€œMother.”
    â€œSome women can have sex without being in love.”
    â€œI know